Blueprint for Improving Access to Primary Care for Adults with Physical Disabilities

Date of Recording: October 2018

The blueprint was created by Independence Care System (ICS), a community-based, nonprofit, Medicaid managed, long-term care agency serving the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. ICS is dedicated to supporting senior adults and adults with physical disabilities and chronic conditions to live at home and participate fully in community life.

The goal of this document is to begin to help reverse the widespread and devastating health consequences people with physical disabilities face because they cannot get access to primary care. This blueprint can be used as a guide for making practical changes that will help increase accessibility. It answers questions such as What are the most important things to do to make your facility accessible? and What is needed for staff to provide disability-competent clinical care?

Learning Objectives: 

• Define the most prevalent barriers to care for adults with physical disabilities and the potential consequences.
• Identify the five critical elements of providing disability-competent primary care.
• Utilize a functional assessment to determine a patient’s special needs and how much staffing, equipment, space, and time are required to meet those needs.
• Understand the need to develop disability sensitivity and awareness training.
• Discuss the steps needed to promote both foundational and advanced clinical expertise of providers.
• Verbalize how a disability-competent model of primary care for adults with physical disabilities empowers patients to take the lead in decision making.

Presenter Information: 

Elaine Castelluccio has over two decades of professional experience in the field of spinal cord injury rehabilitation and recovery. She has a broad background of working clinically as a physical therapist at Helen Hayes Hospital for over ten years, as well as a supervisor and then program director of the hospital’s Spinal Cord Service for another ten years. Administratively, Elaine participated in program development with such initiatives as an adapted sports program, life skills program, mentorship programs, and training development protocol for interdisciplinary direct care disciplines. For the past 15 years, she has been adjunct faculty at Stony Brook University, Mercy College, and Columbia University, teaching spinal cord injury assessment and treatment to physical therapy doctoral programs. Currently, Elaine is working as Program Director for the Physical Disability Program at ICS and overseeing the team of clinicians coordinating care for all the system’s spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis members in the metropolitan area. Elaine is a former CARF surveyor of four years who worked as an administrative and program surveyor.