2021 Forum: Amplifying All Voices in Aging

Amplifying All Voices in LTSS Systems Transformation: California State of the State

For California’s older adults, people with disabilities and family caregivers, the past year brought significant challenges, including equity issues magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. The release of the Master Plan for Aging demonstrates a commitment to addressing system issues and related inequities, with transformation on the precipice through opportunities such as the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative. In this session, attendees learned about the most pressing issues facing our LTSS system, with related legislative, budgetary, and programmatic updates. They engaged with experts to better understand California’s policy landscape through an equity lens and consider where they can play a role.

Panelists:

• Denny Chan, JD, Directing Attorney, Equity Advocacy, Justice in Aging
• Andy Imparato, Executive Director, Disability Rights California
• Michelle Baass​​, MPPA, Director, California Department of Health Care Services
• Kiran Savage-Sangwan, MPH, Executive Director, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
• Kim McCoy Wade, JD, Senior Advisor on Aging, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, Disability and Alzheimer’s

Keynote Address: 

• Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian, Chair, Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, California State Assembly

From Theory to Practice: Delivering Care for People with Complex Needs

Supporting older adults and people with disabilities who have complex needs presents challenges and opportunities. Services have become more integrated and focused on a person’s goals. This makes it essential to enlist providers who can deliver team-based and person-centered care. The National Center for Complex Health & Social Needs (National Center) created a set of core competencies for the health care and social service sectors.

This session provided an overview of the core competencies, and attendees heard from a person whose lived experience and encounters with the delivery system helped inform and shape the competencies. The event offered ways to activate these competencies in practice and those using the competencies shared insights.

Panelists:

• Carter Wilson, MCom, Associate Director, National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers
• Barbara Crider, JD, Executive Director, York County Community Action Corporation
• Anne Whitman, PhD, CPS, MBA, MS, MA, Senior Peer Consultant, Massachusetts General Hospital & Boston Medical Center,
• Michelle Wong, MPH, MPP, Director, Kaiser Permanente

Transforming Medicare and Medicaid Beyond COVID-19 for a Person-Centered Future

While the COVID-19 pandemic exposed problems in meeting the medical and long-term care needs of older adults, the federal government allowed states and local-level providers substantial flexibilities in how care could be organized, delivered, and paid for through Medicare and Medicaid. This response during a public health emergency showed new ways to deliver person-centered care to aging Americans and those living with complex care needs beyond what was previously imagined. In this session, attendees learned about the Medicare and Medicaid flexibilities and heard from local providers who used them to better serve these populations and their family caregivers. They also considered what policy actions should become permanent to achieve person-centered care for the future.

Panelists:

• Sarah Dash, MPH, President & CEO, Alliance for Health Policy
• Stephanie Anthony, JD, MPH, Senior Advisor, Manatt Health Strategies
• Gabriel Ayerza, Senior Director, Medicare Strategy and Medicaid State Programs, Community Health Plan of Washington
• Evan Oakes, MD, MPH, Vice President of Clinical Care, HealthPoint
• Jennifer Podulka, MPAff, Senior Consultant, Health Management Associates

Keynote Address:

• Senator Bob Casey, Chair, U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

A Future Vision for Aging Well and Equitably Beyond COVID: Reflections from Public Health, Media, and Technology Leaders

By 2034, the United States will be – for the first time ever – a country with a greater number of older adults than children and increasing racial and ethnic diversity across the population. How do we reimagine and build an equitable society where all populations can age well, particularly in light of reshaped perspectives from the COVID-19 crisis? This discussion included experts that challenged core assumptions and shared possible futures from the perspectives of public health, media, and technology.

Also in our final week, we announced our 2021 Innovation Award recipient. At the end of the session, Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace recited a poem inspired by the presentations.

Panelists:

• Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, MBA President & CEO, The SCAN Foundation
• Leticia Alejandrez, MA, Director, Telehealth and Human Services, California Emerging Technology Fund
• David Barstow, Professor and Chair of the Investigative Reporting Program, UC Berkeley
• Reginald Tucker-Seeley, ScD, Vice President, Health Equity, ZERO – The End of Prostate Cancer