REPORT: CDC Initiative Presents Comprehensive Data on LTC Providers
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published information on the spectrum of long-term care providers in a new report, the first to be produced by its National Study of Long-Term Care Providers initiative.
The report, Long-Term Care Services in the United States: A 2013 Overview, presents data on the country’s 58,000 paid, regulated long-term care providers, including nursing homes, assisted living communities, and home health agencies.
The report’s authors compare long-term care settings in numerous ways, including by the services they provide and the staffing practices they employ.
In one chart, the report’s authors break down an average resident care day by care setting, showing that direct-care workers provide the majority of hands-on care in each setting.
In adult day services centers, for example, direct-care workers provide an average of 1.08 care hours per day; the average care recipient receives 1.58 daily care hours in such settings.
In residential care communities, meanwhile, direct-care workers are responsible for 2.16 of the total 2.62 hours of care provided per day.
These findings “corroborate other studies showing that direct-care workers provide an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the paid, hands-on, long-term care services in the United States,” the study states, citing PHI data.
In addition to presenting information about long-term care providers, the report compiles demographic information on the 8 million people who receive services and supports through those providers.
The report likely underestimates the amount of long-term care services provided in the U.S., as it does not include the private duty home care agencies, or Medicaid-funded agencies providing non-medical personal assistance.
The National Study of Long-Term Care Providers is operated by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
It replaces the CDC’s previous long-term care data-gathering initiatives: National Nursing Home Survey, National Home and Hospice Care Survey, and National Survey of Residential Care Facilities.
— by Matthew Ozga
