"One Expert’s Opinion: Nursing Home Crisis Will Grow Worse, Says Susan Eaton"
April 23 , 2001
The nation is facing a severe crisis in how it will care for its elderly. In Massachusetts, 56 nursing homes have closed in the last two years. California is facing a severe shortage of qualified caregivers as is Pennsylvania and many other states. Forty out of fifty states have task forces in place to address this pressing issue. The problems will only get worse because the demand for adequate nursing home and home care will increase as baby-boomers age.
Susan Eaton is an assistant professor of public policy and has studied the link between human resource personnel management and the quality of patient care in nursing homes. “The federal government, through the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has commissioned several studies to examine mandating minimum staff ratios. Many quality problems, including safety, arise from under-staffing, either because of too few trained staff or because of poor management practices. If such ratios are mandated, nursing home managers will have to rethink their human resource policies and allocate more money to recruiting, attracting, and retaining nursing staffs. In addition, federal funds are needed to study best practices and to increase enforcement to punish egregious repeat offenders as well as to encourage states to experiment with solutions.”
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