Federal policymakers should be cautious about the influence nursing home ownership has on quality of care after a study found for-profit providers have had worse COVID-19 outcomes, researchers say. 

“Although COVID-19 has been a wake-up call on the need for reform in the nursing home sector over the longer-term, measures (such as stable staffing models and employment standards, secure PPE supply, and avoidance of overcrowding) must be implemented now in the short-term in order to reduce the terrible impact of COVID-19 in nursing homes,” a Canadian research team wrote. 

Study findings were published Friday in the Journal of Long-Term Care. They serve as the latest attack against for-profit nursing homes, which have faced criticism for their response to the public health crisis, in addition to past, pre-pandemic research that has found performance and outcome indicators lagging in for-profit facilities.

Investigators, who conducted a rapid literature review of more than a dozen studies to evaluate the relationship between ownership structure of nursing homes and their pandemic performance, found that for-profits had more COVID-19 deaths, more outbreaks and cases, lower staffing levels and less evidence of adequate personal protective equipment. 

Researchers said the findings show a more complex picture of the relationship between ownership and the response to the pandemic. They also present “a way forward from a policy perspective.” 

“Even as discussions are undertaken about the values that underlie the future of LTC funding models, and whether to move away from for-profit models, steps can be taken now within existing ownership structures to address the factors most closely associated with outcomes,” leader author Florien M. Kruse and his team concluded. 

They added that in the short-term it will likely be more effective to address identified mediating factors of the relationship between ownership and COVID-19 outcomes. In the long-term, researchers concluded, “policymakers should be cautious about encouraging the ownership of nursing homes by for-profit providers.”