Rural residents were more likely to reside in facilities without accreditations or special care programs, factors that increased their odds of receiving poorer quality of care. Policy efforts to enhance Medicare payment approaches as well as increase rural facilities' accreditation status and provision of special care programs will likely reduce quality of care disparities in facilities.

Patients' perceptions of their self-care actions could lead to better outcomes.

States' use of Medicaid 1915(c) waiver services for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) has been limited. The authors examine state-level factors related to the decision to offer waiver services, as well as waiver use and expenditures in states offering waivers for PLWHA. They use fixed effects cross-sectional time series models to explore these state factors. States with Democratic governors were more likely to offer waiver services and were found to have higher rates of use and greater expenditures and to devote a larger share of long-term care dollars to waiver services for PLWHA. State supply of both institutional and residential care beds was negatively related to use and expenditures. Medicaid community-based care has been found to be related to improved outcomes and reduced costs of care. Ways to foster 1915(c) waiver expansion are important so as to increase access to care for PLWHA.

Increased community-based-care capacity appears to be an important factor in efforts to expand the availability of Medicaid community-based care. Federal policies that address state resource issues may also spur growth in community-based long-term care.

This research studied 12,507 residents in 1174 nursing homes from the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey. A multinomial logistic regression model was used to predict risk-adjusted probabilities of pressure ulcers with 4 stages. A medical director or a director of nursing on board reduced the odds of ulcers. Facilities offering clusters of beds for rehabilitation and special care programs for hospice care or behavior problems reduced the odds of stage IV ulcers.