Purpose: The Veterans Affairs or VA health care system is in the process of significantly expanding home health care (HOC) nationwide. We describe VA HHC use in 2003 for all VA HHC users from 2002; we examine whether VA utilization across a broad spectrum of services differed for a sample of VA HHC users and their propensity-score-matched…

Purpose: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has adopted two functional assessment systems that guide care planning: one for nursing home residents (the Resident Assessment Instrument [RAI]) and a compatible one for home care clients (RAI-HC). The purpose of this article is to describe the RAI-HC (often referred to as the Minimum Data Set-Home…

Notes that proposed federal long-term care reforms include eligibility criteria based on disability and cognitive impairment. Illustrates process of evaluating alternative eligibility criteria based on one possible targeting goal--serving those who need most care. Uses channeling data to construct measure of total care needs which is used to…

ACCESS outreach identified more persons in need of service who met the Title XIX eligibility requirements. Home care emphasis provided the opportunity for increasing proportions to remain at home or return to their home from the hospital. (Author)

Presents three articles on housing policies for the elderly. Topics include the need for housing assistance and targeting aid to the disabled, the practicality of delivering support services to impaired elderly in current housing, and potential future directions of federal housing policy. (NRB)