We’ve mentioned before in posts on this blog that it is nice to find that others think as we do. We want to quickly review a couple of things that came out in the industry that buttress what we’ve already written about in these pages.
Still on the Topic of Government Funding for Senior Care
One came from a position paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
As reported in McKnight’s Senior Living, this was a call by the American College of Physicians. for publicly funded universal long-term services and supports to make private long-term care more affordable. Just a few weeks ago CareWork’s blog posted how the state of Washington is launching the WA Cares Fund, a long-term care benefit in Washington state funded through a payroll tax. The program has been difficult to get off the ground but is now slated to begin in July 2023.
California, Michigan, and Illinois are also looking into some version of this program. It’s a case of states stepping up to offer services when Washington fails.
Still on the Bandwagon for CNAs
The second was a piece in Provider touting the need for senior care entities at all levels to institute apprenticeship programs for CNAs, known as registered apprenticeship programs (RAP). It is one of the ways the senior care industry can build up its employment ranks.
Some of the findings and suggestions include:
A clear wage and career progression, a vital part of any good apprenticeship program.
Individuals who complete these apprenticeship programs are encouraged to become mentors for newer employees
Although there are numerous national programs out there, what senior care facilities need to look for is a sponsoring entity that understands the senior care landscape.
“We are trying to career-ladder our CNAs to be leaders and connect them with the necessary educational resources.” Said Tina Sandri, CEO of Forest Hills, an assisted living community in Washington, DC, “Sometimes in life it’s not easy getting to that next step, and we need a nudge. This is a nudge to get our CNAs to the next rung of education if they so desire.”
CareWork visited this subject several months ago in a post titled CNAs Have Much to Offer in Senior Care. Especially telling was a quote from that CareWork blogpost. As “pointed out in a summary of a study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, “Though 26 states required CNAs to have more initial training hours than the federal requirement of 75 hours, only four states required additional yearly CE hours to maintain CNA certification. The combination of increased initial training and annual CE hours was significantly associated with nursing homes reporting lower antidepressant and antipsychotic use and lower average medication use.”
It is vital that we support CNAs. Fortune Magazine recently reported that “burnout and stress are taking a severe toll on the nursing field. One national survey found more than a third of nurses expect to leave the bedside in 2022. A new McKinsey analysis projects a 450,000 shortfall of nurses available for direct patient care by 2025.”
CareWork
CareWork is committed to giving those who work in senior care the tools to work smarter and more efficiently. We give administrators and leadership teams access to the data that will help them make the best decisions for their business and the care of their residents. This allows those same leaders to spend more time on employee development and do the kinds of things that keep employees around.
The CareWork platform integrates with the systems you already use and brings the information together in one screen. The leadership of senior care centers can customize CareWork at the position level so that everyone knows what positions should be staffed and when, and what gaps and open positions there are. CareWork empowers providers and enables them to manage operations in one place and do so strategically. Automated tools provide data that increases quality, controls costs, tracks compliance, manages labor, reduces waste, and gets jobs done faster. We make care work easier.
To learn more, visit our website.