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New Law Helps Ease Caregivers’ Tasks

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State Sen. Margaret O’Brien, who sponsored the CARE Act, said her experience as a caregiver showed her the need for hospitals to provide more information when patients are discharged. Photo by Robert Neumann



By Rick Haglund

Laura Meyer was thrust into the role of caregiver in August, when her 62-year-old husband, Michael, had an unexpected surgery.

Her job was made easier, though, because of a new state law designed to ensure that family caregivers get the information and education they need to properly care for patients when they come home from the hospital.

Michigan’s Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act requires hospitals to do the following:

  • Let patients designate a caregiver at the time they’re admitted.
  • Notify the caregiver when the patient is about to be sent home or transferred to another facility.
  • Provide instructions to the caregiver about medical tasks required once the patient comes home.

Meyer, 62, of Hudsonville, said the instructions provided by the staff at Butterworth Hospital, part of Spectrum Health Medical Center in Grand Rapids, were essential in helping her to properly change bandages and perform other tasks crucial to her husband’s recovery.

“I came home so confident,” Meyer said.

Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed the CARE Act into law on April 13. It took effect July 12. Michigan is one of 32 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have enacted similar laws.

“There’s an understanding that we have a growing senior population in Michigan that needs more care,” said Richard Kline, acting director of the state’s Aging & Adult Services Agency. “The law helps encourage patients and caregivers to get the best information they can.”

People 65 and older make up nearly 16 percent of the state’s population and about 1.3 million Michigan residents (13 percent) are caregivers for older people at any given time.

BETTER OUTCOMES, LOWER COSTS

AARP started pushing for adoption of state CARE laws after its 2012 “Home Alone” report, which found that caregivers were undertaking medical tasks at home that had previously been done in hospitals or by home health care professionals.

“We knew that family members were performing these tasks and not getting the training they needed,” said Lisa Dedden Cooper, AARP Michigan advocacy manager. “The outcome is better when the family caregiver is trained. The patient is less likely to be readmitted. And reducing preventable readmissions reduces health care costs.”

Hospitals could see their Medicare payments cut under the federal Affordable Care Act if too many of their patients are readmitted within 30 days of being discharged.

State Sen. Margaret O’Brien, a Kalamazoo County Republican who introduced the CARE legislation, said her experience tending to several family members showed her that more needed to be done to support caregivers and improve health outcomes.

“This can really ensure caregivers are doing what they should be doing and not playing a guessing game,” she said. “It’s a benefit for everyone involved.”

The new law standardizes procedures that many hospitals were already following in working with caregivers to help patients recover at home after hospital stays, according to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

Chris Mitchell, the association’s senior vice president for advocacy, said in a written statement that hospitals don’t appear to have problems implementing the CARE Act.

Spectrum Health is fine-tuning some of its procedures to adhere to the law, said Kim Doherty, director of inpatient care and utilization management.

“We’ve changed some of the nomenclature in our electronic medical record,” she said. “We didn’t specifically use the word ‘caregiver’ before, but instead used the phrase 'next of kin.' We’re making sure that we build the new language into our systems.”

The CARE Act also has sparked a heightened awareness at Spectrum about staff and caregiver responsibilities during the patient discharge planning process, Doherty said.

“Every day we engage caregivers very much in preparing patients for discharge,” she said.  “It’s just the right thing to do.”

Rick Haglund is a writer living in Birmingham, Mich.

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