External Quality Review - Waiver Services
Posted by: CQL on 12/29/2006
Filed under: Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS) Family Care Program
In partnership with MetaStar
The Situation
Family Care is a long-term care program piloted in nine Wisconsin counties. As a comprehensive and flexible long-term care service system, Family Care strives to foster people’s independence and quality of life, while recognizing the need for interdependence and support. Family Care, authorized by the Governor and Legislature in 1998, serves people with physical disabilities, people with developmental disabilities and frail elders.
Family Care has two major organizational components:
- Aging and disability Resource Centers, designed to be a single entry point where older people and people with disabilities and their families can get information and advice about a wide range of resources available to them in their local communities.
- Care management organizations (CMOs), which manage and deliver the new Family Care benefit, which combines funding and services from a variety of existing programs into one flexible long-term care benefit, tailored to each individual’s needs, circumstances and preferences
A part of the pilot process, the Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS) included a comprehensive evaluation system to provide objective information about the Family Care program, inform the state legislature in making decisions about the future of the program, and meet federal requirements for an independent evaluation of the waiver.
What CQL Did
Working in partnership with Metastar – an external quality review organization – CQL staff conducted interviews and provided consultation and training in the completion of interviews based on 14 participant outcomes. These outcomes are derived from CQL’s Personal Outcome MeasuresSM. These 14 outcomes provided a basis for measuring quality in the Family Care program and determining whether members achieve the outcomes they expect from the services and supports they receive. Over 500, interviews were completed each year.
CQL also worked with the project partners and participants in the Outcomes workgroup to identify system features to support interdisciplinary teams in outcome-based planning.