Short text blocks and charts like the ones reproduced here interpret U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data in often striking ways. For instance, did you know the U.S. is expected to need a million additional direct-care workers, for a total of 4 million, by 2016? Or that direct-care workers will outnumber teachers from kindergarten through high school combined (3.8 million), fast food & counter workers (3.5 million), and cashiers (3.4 million)?
That additional million workers represents an increase of 34 percent in just one decade, the fact sheet points out, and we can’t count on finding all those people in the usual pool of workers - women aged 25 to 54 - since that pool is expected to increase by less than 1 percent between 2006 and 2016.
Norman DeLisle, MDRC
In the report, to be issued on Thursday, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, say they have found widespread “understatement of deficiencies,” including malnutrition, severe bedsores, overuse of prescription medications and abuse of nursing home residents.
Nursing homes are typically inspected once a year by state employees working under contract with the federal government, which sets stringent standards. Federal officials try to validate the work of state inspectors by accompanying them or doing follow-up surveys within a few weeks.
The accountability office found that state employees had missed at least one serious deficiency in 15 percent of the inspections checked by federal officials. In nine states, inspectors missed serious problems in more than 25 percent of the surveys analyzed from 2002 to 2007.
The nine states most likely to miss serious deficiencies were Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming, the report said.
Norman DeLisle, MDRC
Source :PR Newswire
Norman DeLisle, MDRC
It is with that simple statement in mind that I went to the Raising Women’s Voices Conference last month, sponsored by the Avery Institute, Merger Watch, and the National Women’s Health Network.
I was invited to participate on the opening plenary panel to discuss voices that are traditionally left out of health care reform discussions. I talked about direct-care workers — and about Health Care for Health Care Workers and the broader work of PHI.
The conference brought together women’s health advocates, providers, and women in general to talk about health care issues and shape a women’s agenda for health care reform. There were the usual PowerPoint presentations and policy recommendations, but the way the organizers encouraged presenters to tell our stories made it clear from the start that this was no ordinary conference. Raising Women’s Voices lived up to its name, honoring the power of women’s voices and experiences as consumers and providers.
In my day-to-day work talking with policymakers, I have to show lots of facts and figures about direct-care workers not having health insurance and figure out how to “make the case” that this issue matters. At this conference, people listened intently when I opened my presentation with the story of Iya’ Negra, a direct-care worker in Maine. Iya’Negra was diagnosed with fast-growing fibroid tumors after she was kicked by a consumer with Alzheimer’s and the pain from the kicking did not subside. Because she had no health insurance, her health problem turned into a crisis for her whole family.
Sure, the fact that one in four direct-care workers is uninsured was a new and shocking statistic to many at the conference, but what struck them most was how that issue impacts the day-to-day lives of workers, the consumers they assist, and their families.
I thought you all would be interested in a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine on long term care and the presidential election.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi<wbr>/reprint/358/19/1985.pdf
