The nursing home industry is deep in the throes of a staffing crisis.
The Great Resignation hit the sector particularly hard, with stress and mental health factors combining with Covid to drive an exodus of caregivers from the industry. With estimates that 70% of people over the age of 65 will require long-term care before they die and projections of the number of people in need of nursing home care expected to double in the next 25–30 years, owners were already bracing for significant challenges related to caregiver availability.
Now, along comes a government proposal for a slew of nursing home reforms, bringing with it the potential for new staffing ratios and measurement requirements that are likely to burden facility operators and owners even further.
That’s not to say that the proposed reforms aren’t worthwhile. From reducing overcrowding to providing better oversight and management of antipsychotic medications, the initiatives in the proposal can help begin to reverse the negative perception Americans have today as it relates to the quality of care delivered at nursing homes.
KFF polling finds majorities of adults say this country’s nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and other long-term facilities are doing a “bad job” of maintaining adequate staffing levels (70%), offering affordable care (64%), or providing high-quality care to residents (54%). However, new mandates related to staffing ratios and the potential for significant consequences for non-compliance do not bode kindly for already hard-pressed nursing home owners struggling to find help.
From a staffing perspective, the new proposal would establish minimum requirements while requiring operators to more formally and thoroughly measure and report how well they manage, maintain and retain caregiving staff. Once enacted, nursing homes that fail to comply could lose precious government funding while at the same time incurring significant financial penalties, the levels of which could place the viability of smaller, independent facility owners in serious jeopardy.
Considering the historical track record of seeing reforms and policies come to light, perhaps some owners are not paying particular attention to the proposals and the requirements contained within. Perhaps they believe it will never get passed, and even if that were to happen, would never be implemented properly or effectively monitored.
That line of thinking is shortsighted and foolish, particularly for an industry that has been notoriously slow to adapt, modernize, and embrace technology. The time to prepare for those changes is now.
True, the problem of caregiver availability to meet new reform policies may potentially not be able to be tackled overnight. But operators can right now begin to get their internal house in order in anticipation of the new measurement requirements.
They can begin evaluating the potential new provisions and mandates and formulating a plan to procure the resources and systems that will be needed to capture data, accurately measure staffing ratios, and generate the reports that will be required to avoid financial consequences. Owners unfamiliar with technology should use this time to familiarize themselves with new platforms and solutions that can automate staffing functions, capture and convert data into actionable insights, and aid in spotting shortages and closing gaps. Generally, technology can also reduce error-prone manual processing, ultimately resulting in a facility that is operated with more efficiency and effectiveness, with or without the new mandates.
Time will tell if and to what extent the reform proposal introduced during the State of the Union address will make its way into law. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is eager to implement the new regulation outlined in President Biden’s plan and have already begun exploring how they might use analytics and data to monitor and enforce new regulations. A relatively small amount of preventive investment today can pay substantial dividends, potentially eliminating a significant headache for nursing home owners during this challenging time.
Michelle Northey is the chief product officer of SmartLinx, a workforce management solution for healthcare facilities.
