SESSION ABSTRACT: Policy and Systems-Level Interventions to Support Caregivers of Older Adults

In 2012, more than 15 million caregivers provided an estimated 17.5 billion hours of care to people with dementia, and 25% of adults over 18 reported providing care or assistance to one with long-term illness or disabilities in the past 30 days. However, caregiving puts individuals at risk for injury and emotion strain. While many researchers have focused on individual-level interventions for caregivers, this session will highlight a systematic review of the best and promising policy and systems-level interventions to support caregivers’ health. One example is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which recognizes the need to include family caregivers as partners to formal service providers, and promoting new models of care to improve care transitions, coordinate care, and test concurrent care for Medicare beneficiaries.  Additional policies include the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and other paid leave and workplace policies; Medicaid waiver programs and Medicaid funding to pay family caregivers; and systematic caregiver assessments as key component of chronic care delivery, as well as during hospital discharge process. Care coordination is another key systems-level intervention and may include interventions to link multiple community-based and clinical care services and support or using social workers or nurses interacting with caregivers, the healthcare system, and community services. This session will discuss the state of the science around policy/systems-level interventions that require cross-sector collaboration and have significant potential for improving caregiver health at the population-level.