News Release

New Projects Focus on Direct Care Workers

October 6, 2003

The Institute on Aging will be collaborating on two Better Jobs Better Care projects in North Carolina. These grants are intended to conduct studies of public policy interventions and workplace innovations aimed at attracting and retaining high-quality paraprofessional direct care workers in North Carolina's long term care settings. Better Jobs Better Care is a 4-year $15.5 million national research and demonstration program, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies.

North Carolina is one of five states selected for a Demonstration Grant. The award was made to the North Carolina Foundation for Advanced Health Programs, Raleigh, NC which is closely associated with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The project team will work with provider and consumer agencies to develop a special licensure designation for home care agencies, and for residential and nursing facilities. Those agencies that achieve high workforce standards and outcomes, such as retention rates and consumer satisfaction, will be eligible for special licensure intended to serve as the basis for higher state payment rates. The increased rates may be used to increase wages and other benefits for direct care workers. The Institute on Aging will provide statistical support to track direct care worker recruitment and retention and will monitor wages and workforce participation levels of nurse aides and similar workers in long term care settings.

In the second project, the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC is one of eight research institutes receiving Applied Research and Evaluation awards. The new project builds on the successful WIN A STEP UP project currently conducted by the IOA with support from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The current program provides education and training to direct care workers in a number of nursing homes in North Carolina in order to improve job satisfaction, career commitment and retention. Under the new grant, researchers will study which factors promote or obstruct successful implementation of the program. It will use the findings to improve the program, and develop an "enhanced" program at additional sites. The project will measure the impact of the "original" and "enhanced" interventions on job satisfaction, job and organizational commitment, turnover rates, perceived quality of care, and direct care workers' performance, and compare the data with measures from matched control sites. The project will also examine ways to expand the program to home and community-based settings. The IOA is one of eight collaborating organizations involved. Other collaborators on the project will be NC DHHS Office of Long Term Care, Association for Home and Hospice Care of NC, NC Health Care Facilities Association, Duke School of Nursing, UNC School of Nursing, and UNC School of Social Work. Thomas R. (Bob) Konrad is the principal investigator of this study. Konrad is also Senior Research Scientist at the IOA and Senior Project Director of the WIN A STEP UP project, based at the IOA.

Better Jobs Better Care is a 4-year $15.5 million research and demonstration program. Its goal is to achieve changes in long-term care policy and practice that help to reduce high vacancy and turnover rates among direct care staff across the spectrum of long-term care settings and contribute to improved workforce quality. Through two types of grant programs - Demonstration Programs and Applied Research and Evaluation Programs - Better Jobs Better Care will test new approaches to providing a more stable and qualified long-term care staff and systematically evaluate what works best to achieve this objective.

For Information on the Demonstration Project Contact: Susan Harmuth, Senior Project Director, NCFAHP, 919-733-4534

For information on the Research and Evaluation Project Contact: Thomas R. Konrad, Sheps Center, 919-966-2501