142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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299540
Housing Our Heroes: Suggestions to Grow the VA Medical Foster Home Program

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Sunday, November 16, 2014

Leah Haverhals, MA , Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered & Value Driven Care, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, CO
Chelsea Manheim, LCSW , Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered & Value Driven Care, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, CO
Jacqueline Jones, PhD, RN , Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered & Value Driven Care, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, CO
Cari Levy, MD, PhD , Denver/Seattle Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered & Value Driven Care, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, CO
The VA Medical Foster Home (MFH) program began in 2008 and provides Veterans who have advanced diseases or debilitating illnesses/injuries the choice to receive care in a private home of a VA-approved caregiver rather than a nursing home. As of November 2013, there were 114 MFH programs in the United States. While some have flourished, others have struggled to grow, and some have been discontinued due to low-enrollment. The goal of this research was to conduct a qualitative study to determine challenges and provide suggestions to grow MFH programs nationally. Two researchers conducted phone interviews with 10 MFH coordinators and program support assistants at low-enrollment MFH programs across the country. Interviews were transcribed and qualitative analysis was conducted using an inductive and deductive toolkit, with researchers coding interview transcripts using Atlas.ti qualitative software. The interviewers met with the research team’s qualitative research expert to discuss code definitions and emerging themes. The following themes emerged as challenges to growth of low-enrollment MFH programs: requirements of MFH coordinators to perform duties outside their job descriptions; outreach to medical care providers for appropriate Veteran referrals; recruitment of quality caregivers; and local leadership and medical care provider buy-in. Despite these challenges, those interviewed felt their MFH programs should continue to be supported and all interviewees shared stories of Veterans thriving in the MFH environment. If the challenges above are addressed, those interviewed believed the MFH program would expand. This research is part of a larger study of the national VA MFH program.

Learning Areas:

Program planning

Learning Objectives:
Describe challenges in getting VA Medical Foster Home programs off the ground. Identify methods VA Medical Foster Home sites could employ in order to increase enrollment of Veterans into Medical Foster Home programs. Identify outreach methods VA Medical Foster Home sites could employ to recruit caregivers for the Medical Foster Home programs.

Keyword(s): Veterans' Health, Caregivers

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the project manager on the national, multi-site Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Foster Home study since its inception in 2012 and conducted much of the pilot work for the study in 2011. I helped developed the interview guides used for the interviews analyzed for inclusion in this abstract, conducted some of the interviews, and analyzed the data presented in this abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.