Finding staff. Filling beds. Obtaining sufficient personal protective equipment. Three of the long-term care’s top challenges during 2020, right?
Well, it appears 2021 might be a case of déjà vu all over again. Says who? Says you. Or to be more precise, says more than 300 fellow providers who participated in our most recent McKnight’s Flash Survey.
If the findings revealed any top-of-mind surprises, it’s that there really weren’t many.
Leading the way was the perennial bugaboo: finding and keeping sufficient staff. In fact, almost nine in 10 long-term care professionals (88%) named it as one of their four leading concerns (out of 10 choices) for 2021.
Rounding out the top three were “Rebuilding or keeping enough census” (82%) and “Having enough PPE” (44%). Those are certainly very real issues. But let’s face it, the top two have been around for decades.
Who knows what next year will actually bring? It’s safe to say that this time a year ago, nobody was predicting COVID-19 would inflict unprecedented carnage.
So it’s entirely possible there may be some real curve balls tucked into next year’s calendar. But it’s also likely that many semi-sleepless nights will be caused by recurring nightmares.
John O’Connor is editorial director for McKnight’s
