Long-term care providers and hospitals still have far to go to overcome the ongoing workforce shortage, and providers in each sector will likely have to contribute creative solutions to survive, according to Forbes columnist Howard Gleckman.
Recent data has revealed that the number of employees in the long-term care industry is the lowest it’s been in 15 years at about 2.97 million overall workers. That’s the lowest since January 2007.
The effects of long-term care shortages have trickled into hospitals, preventing discharges and leaving seniors there longer than necessary, Gleckman noted in a Thursday column.
“Short-staffed nursing homes won’t take them, especially if they have complex needs,” he wrote. “In some parts of the country, especially in rural areas, there no longer are nursing homes within a reasonable distance of a patient’s home.”
He argued that the combination of higher labor costs and longer lengths of stay “could be fatal.”
“Considering the time it takes to train a new nurse and the ongoing fallout from the pandemic, it likely will be years before the current nursing shortage abates,” Gleckman concluded. “Until it does, regulators, payers, and facilities themselves will have to find new ways to manage patients through their hospital stays and get them discharged in timely and safe ways.”
