CEO of SmartLinx Solutions, a leader in workforce management solutions for post-acute care and senior living organizations.
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While no industry remains unscathed, the Covid-19 pandemic is hitting senior living and post-acute care providers particularly hard, extracting a heavy toll on employees, residents and operators alike. However, they continue adapting to ongoing challenges, demonstrating remarkable resilience and dedication.
Fortunately, technology has the power to address some of the industry’s most pressing challenges and help facilities navigate the “next normal” in 2021 and beyond. From my vantage point in the space of care-focused workforce management technology, I see a number of trends that are poised to transform the care industry within the next year. These innovations will ultimately impact how daily operations are conducted and improve quality of life for facility operators and residents.
The need for hiring will surge.
Employee turnover remains an ongoing challenge with rates exceeding 33% in senior care, according to Argentum’s 2020 Workforce Trends Report. We’ve seen turnover rates exceeding 70% among caregiving staff in many skilled nursing facilities.
The pandemic further drives the staffing shortage as caregivers struggle to manage competing priorities, from caring for children and other family members to juggling more demanding work schedules and striving to protect their health. One in five skilled nursing facilities have reported severe worker shortages since the Covid-19 outbreak, according to a 2020 study.
Meanwhile, longer lifespans are increasing the demand for care. In the U.S., about 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day. Our own recent research estimates that many of the 67 million people over age 60 need or will need care. In the next 20 year years, another 65 million more Americans will turn 65 while experts predict the number of seniors who need long-term care will increase to 15 million by 2050.
As the senior population grows exponentially, so do the business opportunities available to long-term care operators in order to weather today’s storms and meet tomorrow’s needs. It won’t be easy. Accommodating evolving demands can place enormous strain on beleaguered facilities. Post-acute and senior care organizations must bolster their hiring and adjust their operations to meet current and future needs.
Staffing challenges will be met with technology solutions.
Amid rising turnover and rapidly expanding care needs, many operators face an unprecedented staffing crisis. Skilled nursing and assisted living facilities that were short-staffed before the pandemic are finding hiring and retaining nurses even harder now. They know quality of care is intrinsically linked to staffing but struggle to overcome this shortage.
Finding technology that combats staffing problems can be challenging. Workforce management systems are a natural remedy because they promise to streamline staffing processes. But when providers force-fit generic scheduling and time tracking systems into complex senior care operations, they encounter performance gaps that require manual workarounds and erode the system’s benefits.
Before adopting new technology, operators should analyze their staffing operations to identify inefficiencies. Since populations and care needs change frequently, senior care operators must continually adjust staffing. Many automate schedule creation but manually adjust schedules to support fluctuating populations and acuity, which often includes managing shifts and updating scheduling and attendance software.
Operators should instead deploy technology to automatically create and adjust schedules to support patient-per-day census values and resident acuity. The software should also help close open shifts by recommending qualified staffers who can work without overtime and shift requests.
When evaluating technology with integrated scheduling, attendance and compliance management, operators should consider the real-world application. Many attendance and scheduling systems exchange data via periodic batch reports rather than real-time sharing, which means they often don’t expose staffing gaps until hours after they manifest. Look for a solution that shares real-time data and presents at-a-glance views across the enterprise. Then, administrators can proactively identify and manage staffing discrepancies as they occur.
Although technology cannot solve staffing challenges overnight, it can address underlying factors.
Facilities will adopt a digital-first mindset.
Digital transformation can benefit nearly every player in long-term care — including skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities and at-home care. Organizations that leverage technology to optimize their processes will be better prepared to meet future challenges.
When evaluating providers, operators should evaluate potential technology partners’ industry expertise and customer support. Many solutions claim to automate scheduling, attendance and reporting but prove difficult to use because they’re not designed for senior care operations. Since implementing workforce management technology requires revamping workflows and configuring settings, dedicated customer support is essential.
Operators should evaluate the end-to-end experience for all users, including administrators, schedulers and employees, examining capabilities like KPI tracking and information presentation.
Before negotiating purchases, operators should consider how much they’re willing to pay per employee since SaaS products are generally priced on a per employee per month basis.
As digital transformation begins to dominate, senior care operators will search for technology partners that understand their business and can help them navigate their digitization. In 2021, expect to see more health-tech partnerships and use cases.
Compliance challenges will come to the forefront.
Regulatory compliance will remain daunting. Although the government temporarily eased up on some staffing requirements, compliance-related stress grew in 2020 due to fluctuating health and safety guidelines. Later in the year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reinstated strict staffing requirements for skilled nursing facilities and is expected to enforce more infection control requirements.
Fortunately, facilities can utilize technology not only to fuel digital transformation but also to comply with state and federal regulations. Workforce management technology can harness real-time data to reveal compliance gaps, recommend ways to close them and fulfill reporting requirements, helping operators minimize risk, avoid penalties and devote more efforts to big picture goals.
Technology will lead industry change in 2021.
Digital transformation through workforce management will be key to solving the pressing issues facing senior living and post-acute care facilities, from meeting staffing challenges and reducing overhead costs to safeguarding residents and staff to achieving operational efficiencies.
Operators and residents alike will reap the benefits of technology-driven, forward-looking facilities that can improve quality of employee life and resident care.
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