Message From the President

The following message from the BCASCO President is adapted from the November-December 2006 issue of our Senior Power newsletter.

BCASCO has spent the summer and fall learning and working hard to improve the lives of seniors. Even though the legislative session ended in early April, our work did not. We worked on committees to implement legislation that had been passed.

This is part of what we did:

1. HB690. Worked with the state to discuss changes for how people could become licensed nursing-home administrators
2. HB1042. Made recommendations to begin developing a plan for giving home care through personal assistance to disabled people
3. HB1322. Defined the language and refined the procedure for servicing residents in assisted-living programs who have shown a "significant change of condition"
4. HB1322. Discussed using technology instead of having awake overnight staff in an assisted-living program
5. HB1322. Developed a method to determine when awake overnight staff and on-site nursing should not be required in an assisted-living program
6. HB826. Developed a standardized form for all assisted-living programs to present to prospective clients for comparison

We also co-sponsored seven workshops around the state that informed people of the new move toward Culture Change (patient-directed care) while living in a nursing home. This was put on by Voices for Quality Care. Some of the other co-sponsors were the Maryland Department of Aging and the Office of Health Care Quality.

Georgia Peacock and I visited several facilities to see some of these concepts already in place.

Beth Wiseman
President, BCASCO