Q: You recently studied the impact of the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, on nursing homes. What did you find?
A: Nursing homes were able to fairly quickly improve their CNA staffing after receiving a PPP loan, which equated to two additional shifts per week one month after receiving a loan and four additional shifts per week six months after receiving a loan. They not only increased staffing with those dollars, they significantly increased it.
Q: You’ve been granted $3.7 million to continue examining these and similar effects over the next five years. What’s the next area of focus?
A: With our next study, we will be able to see how that funding affected staffing stability and staffing tenure, which is found to be an even more reliable indicator of quality. And we’ll also look at the impacts on dementia residents because they do require more staff attention, more direct care, especially as we try to get away from pharmacological interventions.
The overall goal is to develop a framework to guide future nursing home responses to public health emergencies that will improve staff patterns and resulting outcomes for residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in low-resourced neighborhoods. For that work, we’ll be looking at staffing data and interviewing nursing homes across the US.
Q: The public health emergency is over. Why continue to study the reach of COVID-related funding for the SNF sector?
A: It is really important to focus on minimum staffing standard expectations. But we also have to make sure that nursing homes are able to hire. With this research, we’re able to see programs [resulting from extra funding] as a model. The question is, where are the staff coming from, and what support do they need to attract them? That’s the gap we have.
From the October 2023 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
