Health Access and Long Term Services: Personal Assistance Services

Access to Medical Care: Adults with Physical Disabilities

The twenty-minute video/DVD and training curriculum for physicians, dentists, nurses, and other medical staff covers issues that affect the quality of care for patients with disabilities in outpatient clinical settings. Interviews with expert medical providers and a diverse group of people with disabilities address cultural competence; access and communication issues in the clinic; common myths and stereotypes about disability that interfere with accurate assessment of patients; and barriers to health care delivery.

Directory of Publicly Funded PAS Programs

The data in this page is derived from WID's 1999 Survey of Publicly Funded PAS programs. To gather this data we mailed out a survey and held telephone interviews with respondents at all the PAS programs we could locate. Although our response rate was quite good, some programs did refuse to participate, and there are likely to be others that we did not identify as part of the sample, so even though this list represents our best effort, it may not be an exhaustive list of all PAS programs in the country.

Personal Assistance Services: A New Millennium

For a person with a disability, a personal assistant can make the difference between living in the community or being institutionalized. That's why the World Institute on Disability's (WID) Personal Assistance Services (PAS) Division is engaged in a comprehensive project to determine how PAS can best promote the independent living, economic self-sufficiency, and full integration of people with disabilities into society. This summer, WID teamed up with four other organizations committed to promoting the full inclusion of people into society. Together they brought together 120 key leaders engaged in PAS to accomplish the following...

PAS Systems Change: A Workbook for Improving PAS in Your State

This manual will allow the reader to assess the current PAS system in their state and envision an ideal system, develop strategies to redesign their current system, create a viable plan of action to implement a comprehensive statewide PAS program.

PAS Fundamentals

PAS Fundamentals offers a comprehensive overview of PAS. This manual allows the reader to explore different PAS models, examine the diversity of PAS delivery and funding, learn about national PAS legislation and supreme court decisions and their impact at the state level.

Autonomy or Abandonment: Changing Perspectives on Delegation

"Delegation" allows an unlicensed homecare provider to perform specific tasks currently performed by licensed health care providers, such as nurses. Published by The National Council on Aging, Inc., this report offers highlights of a symposium which explored issues of delegation in home- and community-based settings with a variety of key stakeholders-nurses, state level policymakers, providers and consumers. It also reports the findings of a state survey on delegation, gives an overview of the legal and regulatory issues, and of the factors influencing our approach to delegation in the country today.

Personal Assistance Services Management, Annotated Resource List

This concise, annotated list offers resources on how people with disabilities can find, hire and manage their personal assistance services (PAS).

Liability Issues Affecting Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Services: Report and Recommendations

This manual offers an understandable explanation of liability law as it relates to Personal Assistance Services and suggests practical strategies for meeting legal requirements without sacrificing the needs of people with disabilities. Contents include employment tax, benefits, personal injury (tort law and risk apportionment), and licensure/ certification (nurse practice acts).

Personal Assistance Services (PAS): People with Disabilities Forging Public Policy (Video)

This video, filmed during an international symposium on PAS held in Oakland, CA in the fall of 1991, offers an excellent introduction to PAS. It addresses PAS as an Independent Living and Civil Rights issue. Perspectives from a diverse array of disability advocates from both the U.S. and Europe are represented.

The Cost of Program Models Providing Personal Assistance Services (PAS) for Independent Living

This report analyzes six program models in terms of cost and degree of support for Independent Living using data from WlD's 1989 program survey of all publicly-funded PAS programs in the United States. Both Independent provider and agency models are examined and compared.

Personal Perspectives on Personal Assistance Services

This collection of personal essays explores a wide range of perspectives on personal assistance services. Family issues and PAS concerns for people with different disabilities, of different ages, and as members of minority groups are addressed.

Policy Issues Affecting the Medicaid Personal Care Services Optional Benefit: Full Report

POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING THE MEDICAID PERSONAL CARE SERVICES OPTIONAL BENEFIT: FULL REPORT

Resolution on Personal Assistance Services

This Resolution was passed by the participants of the International Personal Assistance Services Symposium, sponsored by WID in 1991, and outlines the crucial elements of a national PAS policy.

Executive Summary of Attending to America

This summary succinctly presents the findings, analyses and recommendations of WID's research project (below) on attendant services.

Attending to America: Personal Assistance for Independent Living: A Report of the National Survey of Attendant Services Programs in the United States

This unique 1987 report explores the then current publicly provided personal assistance system in the U.S. It contains policy recommendations and action steps, a definition of terms, a directory of attendant service programs in the U.S. and a bibliography.