Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved

In 1994, the American Red Cross initiated a subsidized personal response system program for low-income elders in the Detroit area to help these elders maintain their independence at home. Data were collected on 379 low-income, at-risk elderly clients from Detroit and surrounding Wayne County, Michigan. More than 80 percent of the sample were African American (n = 313), and the remainder were white (n = 66) elders. Statistically significant changes in number of emergency room visits only occurred among white subscribers, increasing on average by 1.4 annual visits. One year after the installation of the personal response system, white users were twice as likely as the African Americans to make an emergency room visit or to stay overnight in the hospital. Subsidized personal response system may be an appropriate third-party government-supported secondary intervention for home-based low-income and at-risk elders to prevent premature emergency room use, hospitalizations, and institutional placements.