National Policy & Practice Activities
PHI's national programs combine research and analysis, advocacy, and technical assistance for long-term care stakeholders seeking to stabilize the direct-care workforce.
Research
A recognized expert on the direct-care workforce crisis, PHI has authored numerous papers that have served to bring attention to, and shape the debate, around the need for a stable, valued, and well-trained workforce.
PHI is also working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on their New Freedom Initiative, which seeks to provide people with disabilities adequate supports to live independently in their communities. CMS funded PHI to explore the adequacy and availaibility of personal assistance workers and to identify practical, field-tested ideas to help both employers and state and local policymakers strengthen and support the workforce.
Finally, through its National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce, PHI is providing resources to support the National Center for Personal Assistance Services at the University of California, San Francisco.
Advocacy
To build a strong constituency for quality jobs in long-term care, PHI has promoted the formation of multistakeholder long-term care coalitions that bring together long-term care's primary constituents: consumers, providers, and workers. This coalition strategy led to the founding of the Direct Care Alliance, a national multistakeholder voice for quality jobs and quality long-term care. Staffed by PHI, the DCA has a Washington, DC, office and supports a variety of efforts on the state and national level to build a stable, valued, and well-trained direct-care workforce across long-term care settings.
PHI's Health Care for Health Care Workers (HCHCW) initiative is a multistakeholder campaign that advocates affordable health coverage for workers in nursing homes, assisted living, and in-home settings. Initially supporting campaigns in three states — Michigan, Maine, and Pennsylvania — HCHCW works to:
- increase public awareness of this growing problem;
- mobilize support among stakeholders for reforms; and
- identify and promote state-based public policy solutions.
PHI has also been a partner in the Quality Care through Quality Jobs campaign, an effort to bring forward federal legislation that would generate innovations in long-term care systems and practices that would improve the quality of direct-care jobs and quality of care for consumers, within both home- and facility-based settings.
Finally, PHI empowers direct-care workers to become advocates in their workplace and the policy arena.
Technical Assistance
PHI's coalition strategy has been adapted by the Better Jobs Better Care Demonstration, a $15.3 million three-year research and demonstration program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies.
PHI is the national technical assistance provider for the demonstration program, which funds state-level coalitions in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Oregon, North Carolina, and Iowa to develop innovative strategies for addressing high turnover and vacancies among direct-care workers. PHI policy and practice experts are working in each of these five states to strengthen the state coalitions, advocacy efforts, and demonstrations of innovative workplace and caregiving practices.
As technical assistant to the Catholic Healthcare Association’s Employer of Choice program, PHI co-authored with CHA Finding and Keeping Direct Care Staff, a guide to effective workplace practices and advocacy for employers addressing the direct-care staffing crisis.
