The federal agency in charge of health care services for millions
of older Americans offers an online search engine to find the
best in-home health services.
LifeWise Home Site
The "LifeWise
Home" is the centerpiece of the NAHB Research Center's
(NAHBRC) National
Center for Seniors' Housing Research (NCSHR) Web site.
NAHBRC established the center several years ago in cooperation
with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration
on Aging to assist those who wish to live comfortably, safely
and independently in their own homes as they age and retire
-- regardless of income or physical ability level.
Surveys reveal a growing majority of aging Americans -- especially
baby boomers -- desire to do just that.
The LifeWise Home page is reason alone to visit the Web site.
It includes a photo-tour of the experimental home NAHBRC constructed
a year ago at its National Research Home Park in Bowie, MD,
specifications, features and floorplans, and new information
on how to tour the home in person.
The simple 1,900 square-foot, Craftsman-styled home on three
levels -- including attic living space equipped with a kitchen
and bath -- has two bathrooms and two bedrooms.
From its no-step entry design at three exterior doors to its
maintenance-free durable metal roofing, LifeWise is an aging-in-place
dream home packed with features to make older years eminently
more livable.
The home's features include open floor plans, an extra-wide
single-car garage, contrasting colors between walls and facings
and baseboards for those with impaired vision, raised or lowered
appliances with front controls, a first floor easy-access HVAC
system, lowered cabinets, roll-under sinks, levered door knobs
and faucets, chair rails that double as hand rails throughout
and dozens of other features.
The Web site also includes a host of sections on assisted-living
technology; aging-in-place community and aging-in-place content.
Home Health Care Services Search Engine
The federal Home
Health Compare is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services' (CMS) online search engine that uses Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)-mandated
data to ferret out the best home health care services among
those that participate in the federal Medicare program nationwide.
HIPAA is a variety of health care reform policies carried
about by CMS, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS). Medicare is federal health care coverage
for those who are 65 or older or disabled. Home health care
providers provide health services for those who have conditions
that allow them to remain at home while being treated.
"Not only will consumers be better informed, but home health
agencies themselves will be able to see more clearly what they
must do to improve their care. Publishing this kind of quality
information creates real incentives for health care providers
to further improve the quality of care that they provide to
their patients," said HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.
Home health service providers offer a variety of services,
including physical or occupational therapy, speech therapy,
part-time skilled nursing care and homemaker or chore workers
services. Anyone, Medicare patients and those who are not yet
using Medicare, can tap the online system. For those who don't
use Medicare, they should check to make sure their health insurance
company pays claims from a given company. To rate home health
service providers, Home Health Compare uses the Outcomes
and Assessment Information Set (OASIS), data home health
care providers have gathered since 1999. OASIS is collected
by home health provider staff at the start of care, discharge
or transfer, at a 60-day follow up period and at any resumption
in care.
The data tracked for each company, over time, yield a success
rate listed as a percentage (the higher the percentage the better)
in 11 quality measures related to a patient's improvement in
getting around, improvement in daily activities and improvement
in mental health, as well as the incidence of patient's medical
emergencies.
Medicare also recently rolled out its online "Nursing
Home Compare" service and it offers online the related
"Medicare
Health Plan Compare," "Medicare
Personal Plan Finder," "Dialysis
Facility Compare," and it's newest related service "Prescription
Drug Assistance Program Compare" .
Copyright © 2004 DeadlineNews.Com -- Broderick Perkins,
is executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.Com,
an editorial content and consulting firm. Perkins has been a
consumer and real estate journalist for more than 25 years.
