Nursing home workforce shortage grows

The American Health Care Association (AHCA) has announced statistically-based nursing home employee satisfaction surveys, like resident and family satisfaction surveys, are integral to the long term care profession's ongoing quality improvement efforts. AHCA also noted that the growing prevalence of consumer-driven data like that compiled by the applied research company, 'My InnerView,' assists consumers in evaluating an increasingly diverse array of facilities and options now available in the long term care marketplace.

"Overall, the nursing home employee satisfaction data released by My InnerView is indicative of the fact that while a majority of caregivers rate their facility as 'excellent' or 'good,' we recognize the need to develop and implement effective strategies to improve workforce satisfaction as an additional means of achieving our profession's ongoing quality improvement objectives," stays AHCA President and CEO, Bruce Yarwood. "Like My InnerView's resident and family satisfaction survey, this new data represents another excellent tool now available to assess overall facility performance, and to help consumers make intelligent long term care placement decisions."

During 2006, My InnerView collected satisfaction data from 106,858 staff working in 1,933 nursing homes in every state (except Alaska) and the District of Columbia. These data represented the largest database ever assembled about employee satisfaction and related demographics in the nation's nursing homes. This first national report provided a baseline for future measurement of employee satisfaction in nursing homes.

Key findings included: