Post from the Assisted Living Federation of America:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Serves (HHS) has released its first draft plan outlining its intended actions against Alzheimer’s disease. Due to ALFA’s advocacy efforts in response to the initial framework, the draft plan includes references toassisted living communities.
The plan, ordered by the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), aims to develop effective treatment and prevention strategies by 2025, optimize care quality and efficiency, expand supports for people with Alzheimer’s disease and their family, enhance public awareness and engagement, and track progress and drive improvement. The plan calls for an immediate increase in funding and an optimized system of allocating existing resources to support the multi-faceted approach. The plan emphasizes that a large-scale, coordinated effort across both the public and private sectors is needed to achieve its ambitious goal.
The draft plan includes some notable changes from the initial framework, including the mention of assisted living. Thanks in part to ALFA’s advocacy efforts, the draft plan includes assisted living in its strategy to assess and address the housing needs of those with Alzheimer’s disease. The plan promises to undertake an analysis of current data to better understand the number of assisted living residents with Alzheimer’s disease and the services assisted living communities provide these residents.
The plan will be submitted to the Advisory Council to Address Alzheimer’ Disease for input and open to public comment. ALFA will continue to work with the advisory council and HHS to ensure that assisted living communities play a valuable role in the final plan. Read the complete plan, Draft National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, to see HHS’ complete proposed strategy.
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