LTSS Roadmap - Step 1: Needs Assessment
Guidance for the LTSS roadmap planning model specific to step 1: conducting a needs assessment.
Final
Issued by: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
Issue Date: August 03, 2016
An LTSS needs assessment is an ongoing, defined process that provides an overall picture of the LTSS strengths and needs of a community. Through this process, you can identify unmet LTSS needs and determine the extent of these needs in your community.
Why is a Needs Assessment Important for Providing LTSS?
Selecting and implementing an LTSS model requires obtaining resources, which vary in cost with the model chosen. Conducting a needs assessment reduces the risk of losing valuable resources (time, money, emotional outlay, etc.) because the assessment provides important information that allows you to identify priorities and figure out which LTSS options can work in your community. Additionally, having a broad and complete picture of your community’s demographics and LTSS needs and resources can help you to identify funding sources and estimate potential revenues for the future LTSS program.
What Does the Needs Assessment Provide?
- Baseline (current) information on your community's LTSS environment and needs
- Information to determine funding priorities
- Guide for policy decisions and program development
- Data to support grant proposals - see Who Pays for LTSS? for pros and cons of grant funding
Expert Help to Design a Needs Assessment
Health care planners are strongly encouraged to work with a subject matter expert in survey methodology and design to create the initial needs assessment. Working with an educated and experienced researcher helps ensure the data—whether from focus groups, surveys, or interviews—is properly collected and is as accurate as possible. Flaws in the initial needs assessment can cause serious problems in program design and can even cause a program to fail.
If no researchers are available in your organization or your tribe, consider partnering with a local university for assistance. The National Resource Center on Native American Aging can offer assistance in performing a needs assessment to understand the health and social needs of your community's elders. These needs assessments fulfill the requirements for Title VI grants through the Administration on Aging. Has your tribe already performed a Title VI needs assessment? Your tribe may have collected some useful information already!
Visit the National Resource Center on Native American Aging.
Other national organizations can offer data and needs assessment information.
Needs Assessment Model
Initial Identification of Need
Define the problem
| Identify stakeholders
|
Identify data and methods to
pinpoint need
Data Collection
Primary Data
| Secondary Data – Purpose
– Sources
|
Organize and analyze data
Defining LTSS Needs
After you have done your assessment, you will have proof of the LTSS interests in your community. You may find that your hunches were correct. You may discover new problems or issues that you didn’t suspect.
Based on your findings, you will be able to create a description of LTSS needs in your community.
- Uncovering additional needs. Once you have defined the needs which appear to be most troubling, take the time to think each of them through. You may find that breaking down the bigger issues into smaller ones make it seem easier to manage. This process may also help you to think of other issues which didn’t come up in the needs assessment.
- Knowing how things are now. Your needs assessment will give you some starting numbers to measure from after you begin to provide services.
- Making a plan. Your needs assessment will help to flesh out the details. Knowing how many people need care, how old they are, where they live, and what types of services they are most interested in will help you to figure out the details needed to build a plan for services.
Describing LTSS Needs
Based on your needs assessment results, see if you can clearly identify the following:
Who needs LTSS? How many?
- a. Number of people
- b. Age and gender breakdown
- c. Disabilities in this population
- d. Location (on or off reservation)
What types of LTSS needs are in your community?
- a. caregiver respite
- b. social interaction
- c. transportation
- d. other needs
What services are available now?
Using the information from your LTSS needs assessment, you are now ready to identify the goals and objectives for your LTSS program.
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