Evaluation of New York City Model to Provide Home Care Services: The Cluster Care Demonstration

Cluster care--where a team of workers provide home care services to a population clustered in a small geographic area--was evaluated as an alternative to traditional one-on-one home care services in New York City housing projects to inform city health officials of costs/benefits of reorganizing home health and social services. The evaluation documented the implementation of and assessed costs and outcomes associated with: (1) consolidating services at elderly housing sites; (2) deploying teams of home attendants and on-site supervisors rather than individual workers; (3) restructuring home attendant jobs; (4) adapting administrative systems to a new delivery model and (5) helping clients gain access to a broader array of community services.