The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) defines a peer provider as “a person who uses his or her lived experience of recovery from mental illness and/or addiction, plus skills learned in formal training, to deliver services in behavioral health settings to promote mind-body recovery and resilience. Peer providers have traditionally worked as…
Licensed practical nurses (LPNs), referred to as licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) in some states, are the second-largest health care occupation that requires postsecondary education. More LPNs work in long-term care (LTC) than in any other sector. Demand for LPNs among long-term care providers is expected to increase substantially over the next several decades. Thus, there…
Personal care assistants (PCAs) provide support that enables older adults and individuals with disabilities to remain in home and community settings. This study characterizes the role played by family members and non-family PCAs in California’s Medicaid program, which oversees the nation’s largest consumer-directed personal care assistance program. We describe factors that affect turnover among PCAs,…
An imminent question for health workforce planners is how an increasingly diverse US elderly population and a greater use of home and community-based services will affect demand for long-term care workers. In this article, researchers use national surveys to analyze current use of long-term care and the current long-term care workforce, and project demand for…
In the past decade, the health care industry, and long-term care (LTC) in particular, saw substantial job growth. In anticipation of growing demand for LTC due to an aging demographic, employment opportunities in LTC are expected to surpass those of other US sectors. Workforce planners are concerned about ensuring an adequate pipeline of appropriately trained…
Although previous research has demonstrated a paucity of standards in most states, a few have engaged in a rational approach to designing personal care aide (PCA) training standards with the goal of better preparing these essential frontline workers to provide care. This research brief highlights 7 “leader states” in training standards for Medicaid-funded personal care…
Some state Medicaid-funded programs enable older adults and individuals with disabilities to reside safely in their homes and participate in their communities. In the absence of federal standards, there exists wide variation in minimum training requirements between states and between programs within states. Most of the existing state training requirements are relatively undeveloped compared with…
