Health Affairs Publishes Two Age-Friendly Health Papers in February Issue
Two Age-Friendly Health series papers have been published in the February issue of Health Affairs.
The Age-Friendly Health series features health policy research, analysis and commentary related to building health systems that provide high quality evidence-based health care to older adults.
The two Health Affairs papers in this issue are:
Understanding Nursing Home Spending and Staff Levels in the Context of Recent Nursing Staff Recommendations
John R. Bowblis, Christopher S. Brunt, Huiwen Xu, and David C. Grabowski
The national shortage of nursing home staffing belies the absence of quantitative benchmarks to determine adequate staffing levels for quality care. Authors Bowblis et al. investigated how revenue and spending related to nursing staff levels to establish a national baseline ratio of expenditure to staffing. However, nursing staff expenditure and staff level ratios varied significantly across states, particularly in facilities with high numbers of Medicaid payers. Due to the variability, the authors recommend an additional layer of staff level regulation in addition to expenditure regulation to ensure adequate staffing in nursing homes.
The Role Of Real Estate Investment Trusts In Staffing U.S. Nursing Homes
Robert Tyler Braun, Dunc Williams, David G. Stevenson, Lawrence P. Casalino, Hye-young Jung, Rahul Fernandez, and Mark A. Unruh
Nursing homes are attractive investment targets for for-profit real estate investment trusts (REITs), whose market share in nursing homes has increased dramatically in the last twenty years. However, little is documented on the impact of REIT investment on nursing home quality of care. This study found that REIT investment resulted in decreases in higher-paid RN staffing and increases in lower-paid LPN and CNA staffing. Given the impact of nursing home ownership on quality, Braun and coauthors recommend increased ownership transparency and investigation into indirect ownership for quality assurance purposes.
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