Seventh annual McKnight's Online Expo on the way

The capital landscape for long-term care continues to rebound, which is good news for operators looking to expand in 2012 and beyond, analyst Michael Hargrave told McKnight’s Online Expo participants Wednesday.

In his session “Finding Capital in 2012,” Hargrave, who is the vice president of the NIC Market Area Profile data and analysis service, said that while investors view the senior living sector as “murky,” sources for financing are starting to return.

Real estate investment trusts continue to “drive the transaction volumes,” he said, which reflects that they have the cash to spend. While occupancy rates for skilled nursing facilities are flat, independent living and assisted living also are seeing rising rates. The price-per-unit cost is also trending up, he said.

“This reflects a move toward bidding on these Class A assets and portfolio deals,” Hargrave said. “While we’ve seen some of the larger deals in terms of the REITS, we also see on single assets some price-per-unit values that are pretty valuable.”

In the afternoon Expo session, Marquis Companies’ Kathy LeVee discussed what her company learned in the move to electronic health records. Thoroughly vetting prospective software vendors, assessing hardware, and putting aside time and money for training are major keys, she said.

“We found that once we were embedded in the software, we did a lot of training the trainer. I recommend having a ‘super user’ that can help drive the process,” LeVee said.

These sessions can be viewed here. Once you are registered and logged in, click on the “agenda” tab to listen to previous sessions. You can only earn a CE credit if you listened to the live session.

Tune in today for the final two sessions, and receive CE credit. Attorney Timothy McVey will lead “Avoiding costly wound care mishaps,” at 11 a.m. (ET). He will be followed by former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services official Sheila Lambowitz, who will present the session “The business case for quality,” at 1 p.m. (ET).

Click here to register for these sessions.