$480,000 Grant From The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funds Study of Outreach Workers in Three Delta Counties
| LITTLE ROCK – The Department of Human Services Division of Aging and Adult Services received a grant to study the value and cost savings of using community outreach workers to direct uninsured and underinsured Arkansans toward home and community-based care programs. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded the department the $480,000 as part of their Southern Rural Access Program. DHS is collaborating with the The grant will place outreach workers – called community connectors – in Lee, Monroe and Phillips counties. Community connectors are local people who are trained to seek out hard-to-reach populations of uninsured and underinsured residents and direct them toward services already available in their area. By promoting early intervention, the community connectors help individuals get the services they need to stay at home while potentially saving the state substantial dollars by on institutionalized care. “From a national perspective this is a very important project,” said Michael Beachler, national program director of the RWJF Southern Rural Access Program. “A lack of ongoing financing has been the major barrier impeding the widespread use of outreach workers such as community connectors. This project aims to demonstrate that Medicaid resources can be used to support community connectors in a cost-effective fashion. If the project is successful, many other states may follow Kurt Knickrehm, Department of Human Services Director, said the long-term goal is to determine if community connectors are an efficient use of Medicaid dollars. “Providing community based services to the elderly and adults with physical disabilities is one-third the cost of placing them in a nursing home.” The Tri County Rural Health Network already has three community connectors and a supervisor in place through a one-year pilot program funded through the Arkansas Delta Rural Development Network grant program. The pilot program served more than 2,000 people and has kept at least 11 residents out of long-term care facilities by directing their care givers toward services like home health care, respite care and adult day care. Expectations are that with the increase in connectors, the organization should be able to reach as many as 5,000 people. “Our goal is to improve access to services and improve quality of life,” said Naomi Cottoms, program coordinator of the Tri County Rural Health Network, which will implement the program. The UAMS College of Public Health will be evaluating the cost effectiveness of the program. Representatives from the college will compare information from the program to statistical information from three non-participating counties to determine if the program is reducing costs to Medicaid. Anne Weiss, RWJF senior program officer, emphasized the importance of the evaluation, saying, “While ample evidence exists that lay health workers like the connectors can help improve care for people living with chronic illness, there has been much less effort made to document the financial impact of their services. Hopefully, this project will help to make the business case that programs like this one can be cost effective.” Kate Stewart, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Health Policy and Management in the UAMS College of Public Health, said the findings and lessons learned from the project will be shared with state Medicaid directors, the National Governor’s Association, intervention program managers and national funding organizations. RWJF, based in For more information contact: Julie Munsell Department of Human Services 501-682-8650 julie.munsell@arkansas.gov