Findings from the national evaluation of Systems Transformation (ST) Grantees: Progress toward changing community long-term support service delivery systems

Between FY2005 and FY2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) awarded Systems Transformation (ST) Grants to 18 states to support states' efforts to transform their infrastructure to promote more coordinated and integrated long-term care and support systems that serve individuals with disabilities of all ages.

With just under one-third of the ST Grantees' five-year grant periods completed, findings from the national evaluation reveal that:

• Most grantees have made progress on their objectives close to the rate of time elapsed in the grant period;

• Few grantees are targeting populations aged 21 and under, very few are focusing on all disability groups at the same time, and few are expanding their target populations beyond those already being addressed through existing efforts in their state long-term care (LTC) systems;

• The types of strategies being implemented range from supporting consumer and stakeholder education and participation to creating tools and procedures for improving access and expanding infrastructure (including Information Technology) for service delivery, evaluation, and quality improvement.

• Systems transformation is more developed for three of the six goals being targeted by the grant: improving access, choice and control, and quality management systems.

Furthermore, the evaluation has identified a set of factors that have influenced (both positively and negatively) the grantees' start-up and implementation phases. This presentation will feature an initiative-level logic model that presents these factors, as well as the strategies and the common set of outcomes that are being addressed across these goals.