Fall Winter 2017

www.ohca.com Fall/Winter 2017 The Oregon Caregiver 15 A ARP, in collaboration with the Commonwealth Fund and the SCAN Foundation, recently released the 2017 Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard. This interactive report highlights how well each states’ long term services and supports (LTSS) delivery system is performing and ranks each state against one another. The full report, and interactive guide to each state, is accessible online at www.longtermscorecard.org/. Oregon continues to be one of the highest performing LTSS systems in the nation with a fourth overall ranking. Oregon’s high performing LTSS system is certainly worth celebrating. However, to remain a national leader in the provision of LTSS, Oregon must look at where it can improve and build upon the work that has already been accomplished. To do this, it’s important to understand the report’s main data points. Oregon's fourth overall ranking is a slight decline from the rank of third in 2014, which was the last time the report was released. However, this decline has more to do with the improvement of another state, Vermont, who shot up the rankings from sixth in 2014 to third in 2017 rather than a marked decline in Oregon’s performance. Oregon excels in the support of family caregivers (ranked #1 in the nation), in effective transitions of care (ranked #2), and in the choice of care setting and provider (ranked #4). Where Oregon continues to see room for improvement is in quality of life and quality of care (ranked #27) and in affordability and access (ranked #20). These two metrics saw little or no improvement and their rankings remained unchanged from 2014. The only metric in which Oregon declined was in effective transitions of care, falling from number one to number two in the nation. Without a doubt, Oregon can and should do more to ensure a quality, affordable LTSS system that meets the needs of all individuals. Oregon, or any state for that matter, would ideally never see a decline in performance or ranking— only improvement. Indeed, the need for continuous improvement should be the primary takeaway from this report. The report attempts to give context to what improvement would look like for each state in tangible outcomes. For instance, if Oregon were to reach the top five of all states in every metric area, this would enable an astonishing 41,717 more Oregonians access to Medicaid funded LTSS to help them carry out their daily activities. The efficiencies of these system-wide improvements would more than double the current number of Oregonians with access to Medicaid LTSS. This is just one of the many tangible outcomes of improvement this report offers that would help Oregon move toward a stronger, more effective LTSS system. Although it is important for the long term care community to understand how and why Oregon earned this ranking, ranking systems are imperfect indicators of how well something is working. The complexities of LTSS are far too nuanced to be adequately captured in a simple ranking or chart. Nevertheless, rankings such as the 2017 Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard provide tremendous insight into where we stand as a state and where we need to go from here. As always, there is much work to do to continue to enhance the system of care and supports provided here in Oregon.  Dr. Dawson, D. Phil, is the Director of Research & Analytics at OHCA. AARP Long Term Service Scorecard: A Look at the Data By Walt Dawson, Oregon Health Care Association DATA & RESEARCH Ranked States from the 2017 State Scorecard TOP 10 1. Washington 2. Minnesota 3. Vermont 4. Oregon 5. Alaska 6. Wisconsin 7. Hawaii 8. Colorado 9. California 10. Connecticut t