Survival analysis is an important statistics technique that is used to study time to events. This study explores the application of survival analysis on time to nursing home placement among the elderly who are enrolled at the MI Choice Home and Community Based Waiver program. Nursing homes are one of the major settings to provide long-term care for the elderly, however are associated with high expenditures in public and private sectors, and often cause psychological, social, physical issues for the elderly. The MI Choice Waiver program is a Michigan Medicaid program that allows the elderly to remain at home to receive long-term cares. One of the primary goals of this waiver program is to avoid unnecessary long-term nursing home placement. This study provided an overview of characteristics of elderly waiver enrollees. This study next identified the risk profiles of the waiver clients at the time of their waiver enrollment on the duration to long-term nursing home placement with death as the competing risk. This analysis further incorporated nurse and social worker assessments during the stay at the waiver program to assess the effect of the cumulative hospitalization and the change of health conditions on the time to long-term nursing home placement.
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