Training Standards for Personal Care Aides: Spotlight on Arizona

Arizona is among just 19 states that have enacted uniform training requirements for personal care aides (PCAs) across all Medicaid long-term care programs. The process by which the state adopted these training standards spanned from 2004 to 2012. During that time, home care leaders deliberated extensively over how to achieve a system that ensured a baseline level of competency among PCAs, while balancing the priorities of workers, consumers, providers, and the state. What was the need for PCA training standards in Arizona? How did home care leaders address that need? And how were new personal care training standards implemented and accepted? Tackling these questions, this case study is part one in a three-part series on states that successfully developed PCA training standards.