Jewish Federations Present Health Study; Financed Partly by U.S. Govt.

Community-wide coordination of medical and nursing resources, for improvement of the care of the aged and chronically ill, was recommended here today in a report to the General Assembly by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

The report resulted from an intensive, four-year study sponsored by the CJFWF Health Planning Committee. Louis Stern, of Newark, N.J. chairman of the committee, headed a group of 90 lay and professional representatives from communities throughout the country, many of them with wide experience in health planning. Dr. Franz Goldmann, former professor of public health, headed the study. The research was financed in part by the United States Public Health Service.

Jewish organizations that cooperated in the research basic to the study included 187 hospitals, special institutions for the long-term sick, homes for the aged, family service and vocational service agencies, and welfare federations. Five key recommendations were made in the report, which will be analyzed and discussed here by delegates to the Assembly. The main recommendations are:

1. Expansion of the functions of general hospitals to include responsibility for acute hospital service for the chronic sick, calling also for greater cooperation between. hospitals, long-term institutions and social agencies.

2. Conversion of the functions of homes for the aged into service for the long-term care of physically and mentally impaired adults, plus the development of other community services for the care of the healthy aged.

3. “Vast expansion” of home care programs for the aged.

4. Development of “systematic plans for inter-agency and inter-professional cooperation.”

5. Development of new patterns of association by voluntary, non-profit agencies and institutions with government, insurance organizations and commercial enterprises.

The study found that, “though hundreds, perhaps thousands” of new agencies have sprung up in recent years to serve the increasing number of aged and chronically ill, “each meets only segments of their health and social needs.” Now, the report stated, it is “urgently necessary” to develop a coordinated network of social, health and welfare services, which would make maximum use of available resource.”

United States Surgeon-General Luther L. Terry, in a foreword to the report, stated: “This report, coming from one of the nation’s leading voluntary resources of care in this field, is especially timely.” He emphasized that the recommendations in the report “reflect a high sense of public responsibility in the field of health and welfare,” and commend the document “to the serious attention of all persons interested in health and medical activities.”