Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Department of Aging today delivered on yet another promise to increase public transparency and accountability of the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) network, which provides a host of services to older Pennsylvanians in their communities. Today, the Department began publicly posting performance results on its website for the first batch of AAAs to be monitored under the agency’s new Comprehensive Agency Performance Evaluation, or CAPE – an innovative tool designed to boost transparency and accountability of Pennsylvania’s 52 AAAs. This new initiative transforms the Department’s prior monitoring approach into a more holistic philosophy, where each AAA is evaluated for different performance metrics during a singular monitoring review.
Results for four AAAs – Armstrong, Centre, Chester and Mifflin-Juniata – are now available here. More AAA performance results will be regularly added.
For the first time in the Department’s history, the public is now able to see how well their local AAA is performing in major program areas, such as investigative activities related to suspected elder abuse and helping older adults at home with tasks of daily living.
“Today, we’re sharing the first results of CAPE, the first major overhaul and upgrade of the Department’s monitoring system in decades,” said Secretary of Aging Jason Kavulich. “Under the leadership of Governor Shapiro, in less than two years, we have developed, tested and launched a system that enables us to monitor AAA performance consistently and accurately – and make those results easily available to the public. Monitoring is just one component of what we have envisioned and engineered to be a continual flow of communication toward strengthening accountability and performance. The system has been developed both to help the AAAs identify problems and strive for excellence, while setting objective measurements and impactful sanction procedures if that doesn’t happen.”
Performance evaluations include things like:
- Older Adult Protective Services (documentation requirements, data management, administrative oversight, risk mitigation and safety, and investigative activities)
- OPTIONS, which provides help with tasks of daily living, and the Caregiver Support Program (documentation requirements, data management, administrative oversight, care management, program eligibility, and policy and fiscal operations)
Multiple performance measures feed into each category score; results of CAPE will be routinely posted to the Department’s website, with clearly defined, simple key categories for each AAA.
The Department has already begun posting other relevant key AAA performance data, including the timeliness of required face-to-face visits after a report of suspected abuse is received, and quarterly snapshots of AAA program enrollment and waiting lists.
The Pennsylvania Department of Aging works with a network of 52 AAAs covering Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to deliver services to older adults that help them stay healthy, safe and able to continue thriving in their homes of choice as they age. The Department disburses millions of dollars annually to AAAs to fund these services, and one of the Department’s most important responsibilities is to monitor the performance of each AAA to make sure they are meeting performance standards.
Under the new system, the Department will continue to monitor AAA data and performance monthly; in addition, each AAA will be comprehensively monitored on a consistent schedule, with regular communications in-between those monitorings to discuss the outcomes, ensure that they are taking steps toward any needed performance improvement and provide additional training and technical assistance as needed.
The new system is part of the Shapiro Administration’s commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of Pennsylvania’s rapidly growing older adult population and making certain the Commonwealth remains a place where they can thrive in their golden years. In 2023, Governor Shapiro directed the Department of Aging to produce a 10-year strategic road map to meet the needs of older adults, called Aging Our Way, PA, while his 2025-26 budget proposal includes $2 million to increase accountability and oversight of the AAA network, and a $20 million investment for those AAAs so they can continue to provide key services to older adults.
Work on CAPE began in the spring of 2023. This included tool development, testing, stakeholder engagement and a pilot program with five of the AAAs. CAPE was piloted during calendar year 2024 before being finalized. The core group who made CAPE a reality worked intensively to ensure that this piloting produced useful, actionable information within a compressed timeframe.
