Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau

Family Care is an innovative, system redesign experiment designed to improve Wisconsin?s long-term care (LTC) system. Family Care creates two new community organizations, a Resource Center (RC) to provide one-stop shopping for information and assistance in obtaining services, and a Care Management Organization (CMO) to help arrange and manage services. The program also introduces managed care principles to control escalating costs. If the program achieves its goals, the new long-term care system will provide elderly and adult individuals with physical or developmental disabilities with greater access to flexible services that promote independence and facilitate a higher quality of life. The Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau contracted with The Lewin Group to evaluate the Family Care pilot program. This report completes the first stage of the project, which was a process evaluation. The second stage will be the development of an impact evaluation, which will assess the extent to which the pilot projects are meeting the stated goals of Family Care. The final stage of the evaluation will assess the benefits and costs of the program This report contains background information on the Family Care program as a whole, as well as evaluative information on the development of each pilot project. The report also contains a glossary of terms and a research methodology section that demonstrates the contacts made in the five pilot counties?Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Milwaukee, Portage and Richland?in order to assess the current status of the Family Care program.

"Throughout the engagement, Lewin consultants listened to us and delivered superb analyses and thoughtful guidance–not canned solutions."  NONPROFIT HEALTH SYSTEM