The Home Care Alliance and State Senator Michael O. Moore hosted a very successful 2011 Home Health Care Advocacy Day at the State House yesterday that brought a great turnout of agencies and legislative staff to hear issues of importance, including HCA’s legislative priorities.
More than 60 attendees consisting of legislators, legislative staff, HCA members, government officials and partnering organizations heard a dynamic lineup of speakers. Senator Michael Moore offered welcoming remarks and touched on his experience on a home care visit seeing a telehealth patient with VNA Care Network in Worcester.
Dr. Matthew Shuster, Chief, Department of Ambulatory Geriatrics for Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates gave a great speech on the importance of home care from the physician perspective.
Judy Flynn from Partners Healthcare at Home presented how home care not only fits well into payment reform, but how the industry could represent a huge cost-savings to accountable care organizations based on the broad range of services that agencies provide.
Kathy Duckett, also from Partners, presented on the cost-efficiency and clinical effectiveness of telehealth. One patient she mentioned went from struggling to perform activities of daily living to planning trips to Alaska and Atlantic City (with a warm up stop at Foxwoods) thanks to the care she received through telehealth.
The Alliance’s Executive Director Patricia Kelleher rounded out the first part of the speaking program talking about An Act Relative to Home Health Aides, otherwise known as “nurse delegation,” and also kicked off the second part, which was a briefing for HCA Members only.
Dr. Jean M. McGuire, Assistant Secretary for Disability Policy and Programs for the state’s office of Health and Human Services spoke about the state’s activity on federal grants, pilot programs and other endeavors. Dr. McGuire mentioned how home health care fits in to those initiatives now and could possibly fit in for the future before taking questions from attendees.
After a short break, HCA members fanned out across the State House to meet with legislators and legislative staff to seek support for home health issues and legislation.
To see and hear some of the activity from Home Health Advocacy Day, visit our Facebook and YouTube pages. If you’re interested in becoming involved with the Alliance’s advocacy efforts, contact James Fuccione.
Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.
Think Home Care Blog 
an act relative to home health aides or Nurse delegation is a good advocacy which will help nurses in dealing with work efficienctly. it is important that home care employees must be protected by the law.
rona lee balacuit
an act relative to help work efficiently to Nurse delegation, so that they can give the best services., it also good to hear that they must protected by the law so that the violence or hazard