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July 8, 2003
Chicago Tribune's "Voice of the
People"
Improving Care for Nursing Home Residents
Everybody recognizes that there has to be a better way to
provide health care services to seniors in Illinois. With a
huge budget deficit, the state is struggling to finance
nursing home care for the 57,000 Illinois citizens dependent
on Medicaid. Last year, the state cut funding to these seniors
by $110 million, and this money still has not been restored.
This draconian funding cut has put the health and well being
of these frail elderly in peril.
The Illinois Council on Long Term Care recently presented
"Visions for the Future: Transforming Nursing Home Care
in Illinois," a report including our recommendations for
improving the long-term care system in Illinois, to a public
forum.
Most of our recommendations
require no extra spending by the state.
We offer the following recommendations to our state's
leadership for improving long-term care in Illinois:
- Enable seniors to live
at home and receive community-based health care
whenever possible, with nursing homes focused
primarily on providing higher-level skilled nursing
and rehabilitation services
- Establish a single
referral center in each community to coordinate
placements among hospitals, nursing homes, assisted
living facilities, home health agencies and other
community agencies
- Develop more home-like
settings in nursing homes, with private resident rooms
whenever possible
- Help solve the state's
fiscal crisis through an increase in the nursing home
licensing fee that will generate millions of dollars
in federal matching funds
- Overcome the nursing and
caregiver shortage through career ladder programs and
nursing scholarships
- Create an incentive
program to reward progressive Medicaid facilities that
invest in innovative approaches to resident care
- Certify nursing homes
based on their specialties, such as Alzheimer's care,
cardiac care, and wound care, to help consumers make
informed choices in selecting a facility
- Develop resident and
family satisfaction surveys, and share these results
with the public through the Internet or by publishing
a consumer guide
- Focus the public health
inspection of care system on the real results of care
residents receive, with less emphasis on hundreds of
technical items that don't impact resident-well being
While lawmakers need to immediately address the funding
cut they passed last year, they also must plan a better future for
our state's 85,000 nursing home residents. These seniors
should be better equipped to receive needed health services
within a well-managed system of care.
Legislators must
realize that we are laying the foundation now for how many
of us will be cared for in the future. The time is now for
the state to take action.
Terrence Sullivan
Executive Director
Illinois Council on Long Term Care
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