Caring for Family Caregivers: Perceptions of CARE Act Compliance and Implementation

Background: The Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act encourages inclusion of family caregivers in the hospitalization process for patients. Translating the state laws into meaningful changes within the health care delivery system can be challenging and requires time. This study sought to examine early compliance with and implementation of the CARE Act reported by hospitals in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.; Methods: We sent an online survey to hospital executives in Pennsylvania in 2017. Descriptive statistics were computed to examine hospital characteristics and used to assess compliance and implementation of the CARE Act tenets.; Results: Most hospitals reported that changes have been and are being made to comply with the CARE Act (90.9%). Hospital executives reported that the family caregiver designation is available in 63.6% of the hospitals and notification of patient discharge is available in 45.5%. Hospital executives reported that family caregiver education and instruction is occurring in 31.8% of all inpatient stays. Hospital executives indicated that they are still developing processes to comply with the legislation and to integrate family caregivers into hospital systems and processes.; Conclusions: Our findings suggest that hospitals are complying with the legislation, while fully operationalizing the components of the CARE Act is a work in progress.