Rhode Island To Streamline LTC Services

June 21, 2002 at 08:00 PM

Share & Print

NU Online News Service, June 21, 10:16 a.m. – The Rhode Island Legislature has adopted S.B. 3059, a resolution to endorse and fund the coordination of long-term care service agencies.

This resolution is designed to coordinate the activities of all the different agencies that might help an elderly person, says Sen. Thomas Izzo, D-Cranston, R.I.

Izzo says S.B. 3059 should establish a single "point of entry" for elderly residents who need help from the departments of human services; elderly affairs; health; and mental health, retardation and hospitals.

"It's a matter of efficiency," Izzo says.

In 1996, state officials developed a set of policy reforms to expand the long-term care system's service capacity. The authors of the reforms, which form the heart of S.B. 3059, called for integrated care and the creation of a "consumer-centered" system of coordinated services.

S.B. 3059 asks the state to provide "a sufficient sum of general revenue each year, for a period of no less than five years, to support the initiatives that will enhance the system's capacity to achieve the objectives of reform."

The bill was introduced by Sen. Stephen Alves, D-West Warwick, R.I.

NOT FOR REPRINT