Maui Long Term Care Partnership

The Maui Long Term Care Partnership was established in fall 2000 to expand the choices and quality of cost-effective long term care services for Maui Island residents. The Partnership chose to work in a targeted fashion with five distinct geographic regions, each of which had its own community team or planning group responsible to develop an “Elder Care Plan for Long Term Care.” Each region differed in terms of population diversity, degree of isolation and service availability. Given the relatively thin elder care infrastructure of the region, it was hoped that the Partnership initiative could stimulate very broad community discussion on the island about helping older residents “age with aloha.” The Partnership’s mission is “to establish and sustain a comprehensive, coordinated home and community based model of services for all that will foster quality of life and death with dignity.”

Successes:

• Developed a Career Pathways High School Curriculum to introduce students to a broad view of long term care, the opportunities that can exist for workers in the field and to expose them to the work through both career shadowing and internships.
• Through matching grants, the Partnership implemented a Volunteer Caregiver Pilot Project and the Maui Care Corps Initiative. Volunteers are being identified and recruited who might become paid workers after exposure to training and work opportunities caring for older adults. More than 82 volunteers have been recruited following presentations to 20 organizations.
• The Partnership collaborated with the state Department of Human Services Director to pursue changes in legislation that would update building codes in Hawaii, allowing assisted living developments to operate fully as assisted living and not under the restrictions of nursing homes or about resident mobility.
• High school students successfully retrofitted 19 homes of elder residents in East Maui. There are plans to replicate the program throughout Maui and other islands.

Real Life Impact:

“The Executive Director of the State Department of Human Services participated with the Partnership (represented by Anne Trygstad and Rita Barreras) at a Hawaii Association of Building Code Officials statewide meeting on Maui in 2006.  During her presentation she announced that since July 2003, when the Department began implementing a ‘Going Home Project’ in which Medicaid money follows the client, the Department has successfully de-institutionalized over 700 people from hospital beds to community based settings.  The Department Director reports that to date there have been 700 people helped by the program which saves the State about $70,000 per patient.  The idea for this initiative came from Ann Trygstad, RN, Partnership Policy and Advocacy Committee Co-chair, earning her a Health Systems Corporation Innovation Award.  Anne also received a letter of commendation from Senator Roslyn Baker, (then Chair of the Senate Health Committee and a West Maui Senator).  In addition to the ‘Going Home Project’, Anne assisted with reducing the hospital wait list by increasing the number of foster families in the community through the addition of another case management agency.”