Profiles of nursing home residents with HIV.

Nursing homes are part of the long-term care continuum available to people with advanced HIV disease. The objective of this paper is to profile nursing home residents with HIV at the time of admission, using the Minimum Data Set (MDS). These resident profiles contain sociodemographic characteristics, health status measures, and special treatments and procedures. There are 5,115 admission assessments in the MDS for residents with HIV between June 22, 1998, and January 17, 2000, analyzed for this study. Newly admitted nursing residents with HIV are predominantly male (69.4 percent) and minority (75.4 percent black and Hispanic), relatively young (44.45 years), and heavily Medicaid dependent (70.5 percent). These residents are typically clinically complex and receive a range of special treatments, procedures, and programs. Nursing home residents with HIV are a distinct subset of nursing home residents, largely dependent on the state Medicaid programs to pay for their care.