The following question was recently posted on Quora:
“In what areas would more experimentation in law, policy, and regulation by the Federal Government have the greatest benefits for economic growth and quality of life in the United States?” See the full Request for Information here: Strategy for American Innovation
Read a response from Ed Caruthers, retired physicist and technology developer:
My proposal is that the Federal government establish standards for a new category of home health care worker able to provide services currently now provided separately by home companions, aids, and nurses.
This new category would be able to
- check that medications are being taken, and provide company, house cleaning, and shopping - services currently provided by companions;
- and also provide bathing and transfers (bed to chair, chair to car, ...) - services currently provided in hospitals by aids;
- and also provide simple medical services (shots, catheters, ...) - services currently provided by visiting nurses.
All these services can be legally provided by family and even friends. And I have plenty of experience that even the ‘medical’ services I’ve listed can be performed safely after only a few minutes training, e.g., in a urologist’s office. However, current practices prevent a home health care agency from contracting any single person to provide all these services. Only a nurse could legally provide all these services, but this category of worker needs much less training than a nurse anc should cost much less than a nurse.
The Federal Government’s role would be
- researching the health care needs of people who want to stay in their homes,
- identifying the skills required of home health workers,
- establishing rapid, inexpensive training programs for these workers,
- establishing effective but minimally-bureaucratic certifications,
- and in working with insurance companies to establish reasonably priced insurance programs for these workers and the agencies who contract their services.
There is opportunity for experimentation, since the Federal Government could work with different states to try out different training, certification, and insurance programs.