HHS Assistant Secretary for Aging Addresses
23rd National Home and Community-Based Services Conference

Assistant Secretary for Aging Josefina G. Carbonell delivered the keynote address at the 23rd National Home and Community-Based Services Conference on October 2, 2007, in Albuquerque, N.M.  She addressed the Administration's priorities to help Americans live longer, healthier lives by streamlining access to long-term supports, ensuring high quality care and services, emphasizing prevention as a key to improved longevity, and advancing consumer direction and choice. 

Assistant Secretary Carbonell told the more than 650 national, state and community leaders in attendance that her  “number one priority since arriving at AoA has been to make long-term care more person-centered and more responsive to the needs and preferences of the individual. ”   She used the occasion to highlight the recently launched Nursing Home Diversion Grants Program that will help states redirect the use of existing Older Americans Act funds, and other non-Medicaid resources, to provide more flexible, and more consumer-directed services -- to individuals who are at high-risk of nursing home placement and Medicaid spend-down. 

Click here for Assistant Secretary for Aging’s Remarks