Commissioner Cal Ludeman (.pdf) recently announced six key priorities identified by the senior management team for the Minnesota Department of Human Services in the 2008-2009 biennium:

* Provide integrated services to at-risk adults without children who are struggling to meet their basic needs.
* Improve outcomes for the most at-risk children.
* Reduce disparities in service access and outcomes for racial and ethnic populations.
* Use the state’s participation in the health care market to improve health care quality, access, outcomes and affordability for all Minnesotans.
* Develop effective and accountable mental and chemical health systems.
* Improve home and community-based services for the elderly and people with disabilities by establishing and using performance measurements and standards.

This last priority is directly related to the waiver review project we are conducting in collaboration with DHS. For the project we are conducting a statewide review, county-by-county, of home and community based services. So far we have reviewed 27 counties with three more scheduled in the next couple of months. We've also pulled together some statewide findings; two presentations about these findings can be accessed here. 1. Person-centered planning; 2. Provider monitoring.

The internal DHS newsletter last Friday also featured the waiver review project, with our primary contact, Robert Meyer, talking about the project's goals:

“We believe this is a very valuable process,” said Robert Meyer, director of fiscal analysis and planning in the Continuing Care administration. “It not only enables us to meet requirements in order to continue federal funding of these programs, but it helps us and the counties identify problem areas and correct them. It also helps the state and counties identify strengths and build on them.”