To address these critical questions, LTCCC convened two invitation-only roundtable meetings of state policy makers, leading consumer and provider representatives, and representatives of several of the state’s foremost foundations to begin the dialogue necessary to guide New York’s planning and policy development in the future.

Click here to see a list of participants.

Prior to the meetings, LTCCC conducted significant background research, to give participants the relevant information they needed on demographic, economic and financing issues.  LTCCC also conducted a pre-meeting survey of participants to get a snapshot of what issues and challenges they believe are most crucial for the future.

Click here for a copy our our relevant research findings and background data.

The report, The Future of Nursing Homes in New York State: Results of Two Roundtable Discussions, presents LTCCC’s research findings and the results of those meetings.

Click here for a copy of the report.

Roundtable Follow-Up

In order to find out if any of the participant groups have implemented any of the recommendations of the final report, we will be surveying them every six months. The results of the first survey, collected in September 2008, reveals that many of the recommendations are already being implemented or are about to be implements.

Click here for a summary of the results of our first survey.

Some highlights from the report:

Our research indicates that NY nursing homes and the people who might need them are in trouble:

• The need for nursing home care may grow as New Yorkers get older, poorer, sicker and more disabled.
• Nursing homes will be called upon to do more as our population becomes more racially and ethnically diverse.

At the 1st meeting, participants identified three main themes:

• In order to make nursing homes an attractive option for those who need long term care, culture change or person-directed care will need to become the norm – only it can deliver what consumers want.
• Workplace issues, such as high staff turnover, poor working conditions and shortages pose significant challenges to the nursing home industry.
• Multiple financing issues, including reimbursement for care and dealing with an aging infrastructure, must be addressed. 

At the 2nd meeting, participants brainstormed to develop realistic action steps to meet the challenges identified earlier.  Over 100 action steps were suggested. A few examples:

To encourage culture change & person-directed care: foundations could fund projects that train nursing home staff in how to use resident focus groups to identify issues of concern and areas of resident and family satisfaction and the state could use its website to educate the public about nursing home culture change and their rights as long-term care consumers so that they come to expect and demand positive changes in their community’s facilities.

• To address workforce issues: the state could give “Best Practice” awards to nursing homes that utilize models of decentralized decision-making and providers could provide workers with extra supports, such as pro bono legal services, child day care, and transportation services. 
• To address the problems of adequate financing: providers should consider investing in energy alternatives and new technology in the nursing home to decrease capital expenditures and inefficiency and the state could support research on current and future efficiency models and develop a statewide capital investment strategy.