Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Emerging Community-Based Market Niche

The other day I was listening to a story on NPR about a woman looking for people to take care of her adult son with autism after she died. The piece chronicled her search – placing filers, speaking to neighbors, etc. Her story reminded me of recent statistic we covered: more than two-thirds of adults with disabilities (of all types) live with their parents or a guardian, while only 17% live independently (see 70% of Adults With Disabilities Live With Parents or Guardians premium members).

This is just one piece of a slow-moving iceberg in the health and human service field. Not only do we have many consumers with disabilities living with their aging parents, we have many consumers living in congregate care facilities inappropriately (and illegally). We have covered many components of this situation, including:

• Pennsylvania to Transition State Hospital Residents With Developmental Disabilities to Community premium members

• Ohio Advisory Council Recommends More Home Care for Medicaid Patients, Less Nursing Home Care premium members

• Georgia & DOJ Settlement Expands Community-Based Services premium members

• Illinois Settlement Requires Transition of People With Mental Illness Into Community-Based Services premium members

• Court Finds NYC Violates ADA With Use of Institutional Homes For People With Mental Illness premium members

These developments signal a rapidly-expanding demand for community-based services – and provider organizations with a competency in community-based programming. This also means that the provider organizations that do best competing in the community-based market niche will make the best use of new home telecare technologies (for an example, see European “I2HOME” Project Developing Universal Remote Control for Elderly, Disabled to Control Home Environments premium members).

Whether your organization works with children, with consumers with disabilities, with consumers with chronic health care conditions, or with the 60+ population, there is an emerging community-based market. That makes it an important key trend to bring into your strategic planning process. For best practices in strategic planning, check out my presentation, Strategic Planning: A Structured Approach to Directing Resources to Achieve Your Organizational Objectives premium members. And for more, join our team at the 2011 OPEN MINDS Planning & Innovation Institute.

Sincerely,
Monica E. Oss
Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MINDS

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For more information, see: Using Technology to Create Community-Based Programs  all members 

This resource is free for the next sixty days to all registered OPEN MINDS Circle members.

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