Nation's nursing homes have fewer residents, beds: study

The number of nursing home beds and nursing home residents in America declined between 1999 and 2004, according to the recently released results of the “National Nursing Home Survey: 2004 Overview.”

The number of nursing home beds dropped by more than 10%–from 1.9 million to 1.7 million. Meanwhile, the number of nursing home residents fell by 6%–from 1.6 million to 1.5 million, according to the study, which was released by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Other notable results from the June study included:

• More facilities were both Medicare and Medicaid certified in 2004 (87.6%) than in 1999 (81.8%).

• Of the 936,000 persons providing nursing home care in 2004, the vast majority (roughly 600,800) were certified nursing assistants (CNAs).

• Slightly more than 88% of the residents of the nation’s 16,100 skilled nursing facilities were over the age of 65, 45.2% were over the age of 85, and 71.2% were female.

• Only 1.6% of the entire nursing home population received no assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) while a slight majority–51.1%–required assistance in all five ADL categories.
The full study is available at www.cdc.gov.