Erickson Retirement Communities, a major developer of continuing care retirement communities, will eliminate more than 250 full- and part-time positions in reaction to turmoil in the financial markets, the company said Thursday.

President-elect Barack Obama has laid out ambitious proposals in the area of healthcare reform. But such reform initially might be put on the back burner because of pressing economic concerns, industry observers say.

Nursing home providers would be wise to pump money into information technology to create more efficient, profitable businesses, panelists asserted Tuesday at a CEO round table discussion at the annual meeting of the National Association for the Support of Long Term Care (NASL) in Nashville.

Congress was attempting to hammer out an agreement Wednesday on a $700 bailout package for the unstable financial sector. Such action is good news for long-term care and seniors' retirement accounts, according to Bruce Yarwood, president of the American Health Care Association.

The seniors housing and care sector has made noticeable progress towards developing transparent data, but it still lags behind other real estate classes, according to one of the nation's most renowned real estate experts.

The average skilled nursing occupancy rate held steady, while rates for assisted living and independent living fell noticeably. That is according to the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing and Care Industry's Market Area Profiles (NIC MAP) statistics released Thursday.

A year after a news report uncovered resident care and ownership problems at privately held nursing homes, a new report from Harvard Medical School finds the opposite: Quality at nursing homes does not suffer, and, in certain cases, may even improve under private-equity ownership.

Sunrise Senior Living Inc., a major assisted-living player in the United States, lost more than $70 million last year, and disclosed it would reduce the number of units in its development pipeline.

Stephen McConnell, VP for advocacy and public policy, Alzheimer's Association

For the second year in a row, the average price paid per bed for skilled nursing facilities hit a new record in 2007. The average of $55,200 was 6% higher compared with the year before and 75% more than the notable low of 2003, according to analysis results from research firm Irving Levin Associates.