Acuity ranges amongst senior dwelling residents are persevering with to rise – and could also be underreported, in response to new survey outcomes.
The newest American Seniors Housing Affiliation and August Well being Medical Leaders Report, launched Dec. 8, collected responses from 68 scientific leaders throughout the senior dwelling continuum and nation.
Just below three-quarters of the leaders, 74%, indicated acuity has elevated considerably or elevated considerably within the final yr, with the remaining 26% stating it has remained across the similar or decreased of their communities.
In the meantime, 63% of the surveyed leaders consider resident acuity is definitely underreported of their communities. The report factors to rare assessments and intentional under-scoring as the first causes, which create a discrepancy between documented and precise acuity inside communities.
“Needing to have conversations with households about care charges is probably going one purpose for intentional underscoring,” Lynn Chalk, vp of scientific companies for MBK Senior Dwelling, stated within the report. “Most nurses aren’t outfitted or snug with one of these monetary dialog and this shouldn’t be a part of a nursing duty.”
To deal with the rising ranges of acuity, the survey discovered operators are bringing on med techs and increasing their roles, and 65% of respondents point out enhancing workers high quality and coaching is among the prime challenges for his or her staffing fashions in 2025, in comparison with 57% in 2024. The survey additionally notes “poorly designed workflows and programs, that are needlessly time-consuming, create the phantasm of understaffed communities.”
With the intention to higher look after residents, the vast majority of survey respondents indicated they wished to enhance office tradition, workers satisfaction and workers retention; monitoring and taking motion on data-driven dashboards for high-risk residents; and adjusting care workforce staffing fashions.
“We’re all battling for a similar folks and it’s nice to see there’s an enormous deal with office tradition,” Sara Padilla, vp of well being companies at Senior Useful resource Group, stated within the report. “The churn and burn is actual, so I’m not stunned by the outcomes we’re seeing when it comes to workers retention being a key problem. It’s an correct depiction of what’s taking place.”
Employees engagement and adoption is the present biggest barrier to altering workflows in response to 65% of respondents.
“Time-consuming trainings and a scarcity of stickiness are among the many prime 3 boundaries to adopting new applied sciences,” the report’s authors wrote.
Solely 22% of respondents indicated they haven’t any plans to department into value-based care, and 31% are actively working inside the area. Of these actively participating, one-third are taking up some type of monetary threat within the operations for it.
To grow to be extra proactive with caring for rising acuity ranges, most scientific leaders are optimistic about AI’s potential. Solely 19% of respondents indicated they don’t have AI or usually are not planning on implementing it, whereas 36% both have it totally carried out or are in pilots for the software program. The rest usually are not utilizing it but, however have an interest. The most well-liked use case of AI is for earlier identification of at-risk and rising threat residents, with 88% of respondents stating it’s the supposed use for it.
“The survey highlights the creativity and resilience with which nursing leaders are adapting the care mannequin to satisfy the wants of upper acuity residents amidst persistent staffing pressures,” Justin Schram, co-founder of August Well being, informed Senior Housing Information. “With the assist of deepening healthcare partnerships and value-based care contracting, scientific groups are higher positioned to coordinate care throughout the continuum and drive outcomes.”
