Demand for Quality
Skilled Nursing News reported a new and surprising advocate for safe, quality care at nursing homes: Investment firms! They are demanding better care because it will better guarantee their investment.
Here are the demands they made regarding staffing:
Adhere to best practices of safe staffing levels.
Ensure adequate staff organization, appropriate working hours and protection of workers from occupational risks.
Adhere to best practices of safe staffing levels.
Ensure that caregivers are empowered to request extra staffing to meet additional needs of resident care.
“The investment firms, which together control more than $3 trillion in assets, laid out their demands for better care in letters sent to virtually all of the major publicly traded nursing home operators and real estate investment trust (REIT) landlords in the United States, including:
- Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD)
- CareTrust REIT (Nasdaq: CTRE)
- The Ensign Group (Nasdaq: ENSG)
- Five Star Senior Living (Nasdaq: FVE)
- Genesis HealthCare (formerly NYSE: GEN)
- LTC Properties, Inc. (NYSE: LTC)
- National HealthCare Corporation (NYSE American: NHC)
- Omega Healthcare Investors (NYSE: OHI)
- Sabra Healthcare REIT (Nasdaq: SBRA)
- Welltower Inc. (NYSE: WELL)”
Here is a link to the letter. The firms expect the industry will exceed local regulatory requirements. Investors want safe staffing levels, safe infection control programs, living wages for frontline caregivers, hazard pay, and respecting the right to unionize.