Senior Care Staffing Shortage Crisis- Nightmare Scenario Warns One-Half of Facilities Could Close

The shortage of staff in long-term facilities and home care agencies has gone from a problem to a crisis, according to Howard Gleckman,  a fellow at the Urban Institute.  Consider the following:

• Three rural nursing homes in Maine close because they cannot hire enough staff to maintain care for patients and residents.
• One of the oldest nursing facilities in Summit County, Ohio closed, citing an array of post pandemic financial difficulties, including cost of maintaining adequate staff. 
• A senior living facility in Camden County, Georgia was forced to close due to staffing shortage.  
• A nursing home in Oklahoma shuts its doors due to staff shortages.
• A nursing home in Kansas closes due to staff shortages.
• A new industry survey reports that only 1 percent of nursing homes and 4 percent of assisted living facilities (ALFs) say they are fully staffed, while 89 percent of nursing homes and 82 percent of ALFs report moderate or severe shortages.
• Fifty-eight percent of nursing homes and 28 percent of ALFs say they are limiting admissions because they do not have enough staff to care for residents.
• As many as one-half of all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the nation could close within the next year, if the current staffing crisis is not alleviated, according to Washington Health Care Association CEO Robin Dale.

Gleckman notes that staffing shortages don't impact just nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but impact the entire spectrum of senior care.  For example, the operator of a Maryland home health agency claims it is turning away families looking for assistance because it does not have sufficient aides; “We cannot provide the care our clients deserve with the staff we have,” she told Gleckman.  

Fundamentally, though, as resources are spread thin across the entire health care industry, opportunities for cover and redundancy are disappearing.  Whether those opportunities are within or outside of a formal system, seniors are forced to rely upon less in the hopes that care quality will remain high. The reality is that a system can provide generally high quality care only when it's component parts work to support each other; hospitals support care institutions, care institutions rely upon a full complement of staff within a facility, and upon other outside institutions, to supplement and support care and accept patients best placed in the care of others.  

Many long-term care workers are leaving the health care profession entirely. Widespread shortages of low-wage workers in the hospitality industry give aides the opportunity to work for as much money—or even more—at jobs that are far less physically and emotionally demanding.

Gleckman also warns that these labor shortages appear to be growing at the same time the long-term care industry is confronting another equally important trend: consolidation. Not only are facilities closing, but operators are selling out. Small facilities being acquired by mid-sized chains and large chains are selling out to bigger ones, often owned by private equity firms.

How will these owners, often obsessively focused on the short-term bottom line, confront these labor shortages? It is hard to know, but the answer will be critically important to workers as well as to residents and their families.