7 of the Biggest Challenges in Senior Care and How to Deal with Them
When Benjamin Franklin said the only certainties in life are death and taxes, he forgot to include challenges. Regardless of age, gender, education level, occupation, or any other factor, we all face challenges, and must overcome them to move forward. The senior care industry serves up its share of challenges that must be dealt with to keep facilities moving in the right direction. In this article, we’ll delve into seven significant and common challenges in senior care, as well as how to effectively deal with them.
Senior Care Challenge #1: Recruiting Skilled Workers
Staffing is a different ball game in the post-COVID landscape. What worked before the pandemic may be less successful or fail entirely now. Global changes to the workplace and employment spurred by COVID require new approaches to reach, attract, and acquire skilled senior care workers.
How to deal with it:
Recruit Aggressively
In Skilled Nursing News’ (SNN) executive brief Rebuilding Skilled Nursing Labor Pipelines, Cheri Kauset, VP of Customer Experience and Communications at Mission Health Communities, advises people to be more aggressive in their recruitment efforts.
“Prior to the pandemic, the skilled nursing recruitment and retention landscape was situational, and we were reactive in how we got the job done,” says Kauset. “The post-COVID hiring environment demands a more aggressive approach to keep operations afloat without jeopardizing quality of care.”
Adopting a more intensive approach to recruitment doesn’t mean starting from scratch, but it does require strategy and creativity in recruiting tactics. Maria Darby, COO at Dwyre Workforce Development, shared the following five tips:
Increase visibility within the local community with sponsorships, job fairs, events, networking opportunities.
Partner with nonprofits.
Create a target persona to guide hiring efforts and understand the resources they need to excel.
Build relationships with people in government workforce agencies who are specifically focused on healthcare.
Develop a presence in local colleges and universities.
Learn How to Speak to Younger Workers
Targeting younger workers comes with a variety of benefits, including an injection of enthusiasm and ambition, as well as the prospect of long tenure through loyalty (given your retention plan is on point). However, reaching this alluring target has its own difficulties.
In an article written for Recruiter.com, Andy France, the Director of Recruitment Marketing Automation at Talentify, highlights the shortcomings of the senior care industry when trying to reach younger workers. “For many senior care providers, it’s a matter of not knowing how to craft messages and employment opportunities that appeal to young workers.” France continues, “The key to both reaching younger workers and compensating for the difficulties of senior care work is to get creative about the benefits you offer. Perks like more vacation time, relaxed phone use policies, and paid memberships to gyms and other programs can be alluring enough to outweigh the drawbacks of strict schedules.”
“The key to both reaching younger workers and compensating for the difficulties of senior care work is to get creative about the benefits you offer. ”
Also critical for attracting younger workers is having technology on hand that makes their job easier and allows them to be more effective. At McKnight’s Power Panel in February, Rick Taylor of Sentrics stressed, “New, younger workers expect technology when they arrive. They walk in expecting technology to help them do their job better. If we don’t have it in our business, they’re not going to stay long.”
Sell Yourself
The same way an applicant must sell themselves to an employer, the employer must in turn prove to the applicant that their facility is the place to be. Promoting any employment accolades you’ve earned, such as Activated Insights’ “Great Place to Work” award, provide independent validation that your company goes above and beyond to ensure the workforce is satisfied.
Think of it like shopping for a new car. If you have three options to choose from and only one of them is a quality award winner, that’s going to carry some weight in your decision. The same goes for employees when they’re shopping for a new job.
Positive reviews on sites like Glassdoor or LinkedIn also allow current and former employees to sell your company to prospective employees. So, share them if you’ve got them.
Develop an Attractive Company Culture
While every employee wants to be compensated fairly, a company culture that offers a greater sense of fulfillment can outweigh a higher salary when competing for senior care talent.
“A company culture that offers a greater sense of fulfillment can outweigh a higher salary when competing for senior care talent. ”
In a recent article exploring the tremendous value of senior care workers, HCP Chief Strategy Officer Chris Magleby noted, “If they get a big job offer that includes a lot more money, some of them are going to take it. Most of them are. But if we’re talking about a smaller pay increase, and the job you’re offering is more fulfilling, that’s going to outweigh these financial factors sometimes.”
So, creating a company culture that’s a great fit for a potential employee can tilt the scales in your favor when vying for the signature of a recruit, even if your pockets aren’t as deep. This is especially true of younger workers, who place a high value on social impact and mission.
Senior Care Challenge #2: Retaining Staff
Landing skilled senior care employees is only half the battle; the other half is keeping them on board. High employee turnover continues to plague the industry, with many facilities still trying to dig out from the hole they were put in by the pandemic. Even those that have bounced back struggle with keeping employees engaged and on staff. So, what can you do to keep more of your people?
How to deal with it:
Create a Documented Plan
Formalizing an onboarding and retention plan creates structure, process, and accountability. Your plan should contain goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics for ensuring a smooth onboarding experience and ongoing satisfaction on the job.
Some tactics include checking in with staff at strategic points, instituting methods for easy communication in both directions, and recognizing milestones and significant dates like birthdays and anniversaries. Creating a positive work environment by collecting employee feedback and using it to make appropriate updates or corrections keeps people motivated, engaged, and performing at their best. This benefits everyone, including patients and residents.
Focus on the First 100 Days
Data shows that approximately 4/10 senior care new hires quit within the first 100 days. However, that statistic dramatically improves for employees who make it past the 100-day milestone. So, helping your new hires navigate the choppy waters of the first 100 days sets them up for smooth sailing thereafter.
“If I were running a facility, I’d hire a person dedicated to getting people past those first 100 days. It’s that important,” says HCP CSO Chris Magleby.
Getting new team members past the century mark entails a tried and tested onboarding process, check-ins at strategic points within the first 100 days, and giving them an open line of communication to ask questions, raise concerns, and offer suggestions. Some advanced solutions like Retain by Pinnacle handle this process and even notify you of warning signs of a dissatisfied or unengaged employee.
“If I were running a facility, I’d hire a person dedicated to getting people past those first 100 days. It’s that important.”
Improve Communication
Open communication between staff and managers is essential for improving employee satisfaction. Beyond giving your team members a voice, it alerts you to existing issues and problems in the making. Senior care technology solutions can simplify this process by checking the pulse of your workforce through scheduled surveys.
Set High Standards
Setting higher standards usually means increasing production without decreasing quality, paying greater attention to detail, and going above and beyond one’s job description. However, many people are happy putting in the extra work to achieve an award-winning caliber of service. A joint study between Pinnacle and the American Health Care Association (AHCA) looked at employee satisfaction ratings in the year before, during, and after winning a national quality award. The data highlighted a spike in employee satisfaction the year prior to winning an AHCA National Quality Award. This correlates with the time in which additional processes are being put into place to qualify for the award.
In reviewing the findings, Chris Magleby noted the preference for performing at a higher level among senior care workers, “Thinking about it superficially, you’d imagine people wouldn’t like putting in the extra work to install processes and make the necessary improvements to qualify for the award. But the data indicates that they actually prefer it.”
Celebrate Successes and Milestones
In the same Pinnacle/AHCA study, employee (and customer) satisfaction ratings experience another spike at the time of winning the award.
“People from these winning facilities are going to the AHCA Convention, getting a physical award, and bringing it back to the facility. The whole team is celebrating and showing this award in their meetings,” says Magleby. “It shows the importance of ceremony. The importance of ritual and celebrating.”
Celebrating key moments and milestones from company awards to employee anniversaries have a galvanizing effect on everyone. Findings from a Workhuman survey revealed that 86% of employees say they feel happier and prouder at work as a result of being recognized, while 85% say recognition made them feel more satisfied with their jobs.
Senior Care Challenge #3: Improving Patient Care
Delivering quality care is the lifeblood of any provider, whether they’re a multi-facility organization or an independent proprietor. However, maintaining an elite level of service requires the right people, resources, and an unyielding commitment to excellence. This can understandably be a challenge due to handicaps and obstacles that arise on what can feel like a daily basis.
How to deal with it:
Improve Employee Retention
A full staff is a more competent staff. It’s not surprising that employees can do their job more effectively when they’re not juggling the workloads of three people. Retaining a fully—or even sufficiently—staffed workforce allows staff to deliver better care, commit fewer errors, and spend more time with patients, all while alleviating burnout.
“Retaining a fully—or even sufficiently—staffed workforce allows staff to deliver better care, commit fewer errors, and spend more time with patients”
Set Award-Winning Standards
Just as setting a higher ceiling for workplace standards improves employee fulfillment, it also improves customer satisfaction. In the Pinnacle/AHCA study, the data showed that facilities who win national quality awards experience higher levels of patient satisfaction in the years before, during, and after receiving the accolade. This would logically connect with superior facility standards and the resulting lift in employee satisfaction translating to better care.
Additionally, when these awards are celebrated within the facility, they advertise to the residents or patients that the quality of service is among the best in the country. This can have an extremely positive influence on customer perception of care.
Embrace Technology
There is abundant technology to enhance the level of care a person receives, which senior care facilities need to embrace. From improving accuracy to allowing for more personalized care, embracing and implementing technology can benefit your patients greatly.
Talk and Listen to Patients
The best way to understand how your patient care can be improved is to ask. By regularly checking in with your customers or their families via surveys or direct conversation, you’ll discover opportunities to improve specific aspects of care, in addition to uncovering what you’re doing well.
Senior Care Challenge #4: Increasing Census
Putting heads in beds is essential for the long-term success of senior care facilities. However, with the pandemic keeping people out of care centers, the industry now faces an unprecedented challenge of finding ways to win customers back in the post-pandemic era.
How to deal with it:
Tweak the Footprint
While longer-term damage control and reputation restoration are underway on the backend, modifications on the front end to the physical location may yield more immediate benefits for census growth.
“Depending on your occupancy level, decreasing the size of your footprint can help,” said Patrick McCormick of Plante Moran at McKnight’s Power Panel. “We’ve seen providers really struggle with census and change what a unit or wing in the building might look like, whether it’s a memory care expansion or an affordable assisted living product,”
McCormick also pointed to the potential of hospice programs for census growth, “As higher-acuity patients are in our buildings and continuing to evolve, we’re seeing hospice becoming a more important offering.”
Think like a Marketer
At the end of the day, people are consumers of healthcare. As such, senior care facilities need to market their key differentiators to these consumers as a marketer would. Whether it’s reassurance of safety in the facility, enhanced living accommodations, award-winning performance, or specialized care, senior care organizations must stand out from the crowd to get more customers through the doors.
“Whether it’s reassurance of safety in the facility, enhanced living accommodations, award-winning performance, or specialized care, senior care organizations must stand out from the crowd. ”
Many facilities are already heightening their focus on sales and marketing. Julie Osborne, director of recruitment for national healthcare search firm LeaderStat told McKnight’s Long Term Care News, “We’ve seen an increase from the recruitment perspective in the sales and marketing side of the SNF business: admissions, census development, we’re having a lot of openings there for folks that really understand the market.”
Having staff with the marketing or public relations nous to counter the pandemic-era nursing home stigma can be vital to your patient recruitment efforts.
Specialize in Niche Care
Piggybacking off the idea of standing out from a crowd, specializing in niche care like Alzheimer’s or memory care can help draw patients seeking specific services.
Rick Foley of Omnicare touted the potential of niche care at McKnight’s Power Panel, “All of these little niches help providers manage their place in the market, especially when you get to the rural areas where patients are a little more scarce. You’re seeing facilities identify themselves as experts in niches, which yields a higher census at the end of the day.”
Senior Care Challenge #5: Dealing with Difficult Patients
We’re all in this to help patients and residents, but even the saintliest of us have our limits. From unsolvable complaints to requests that simply can’t be accommodated, difficult patients are high on the list of the most common and challenging problems for senior care employees.
How to deal with it:
Be Proactive
By keeping an eye on irritated or historically difficult patients, you can identify problems in the making and deescalate or address them early when you have the best chance at a successful outcome. Customer survey responses are a great resource at your disposal to identify simmering problems and cool them before they boil over.
Listen, Don’t React
When problems of this nature do escalate, you’ll want to get to the root cause. Fully understanding what’s causing the issue allows you to address and treat the real problem. The process won’t always be a pleasant one, and it’s important not to escalate things any further. Do your best to listen without judgement, using good body language like eye contact and a calm demeanor to show the patient you’re listening.
Practice Empathy
Many patients and family members are scared, frustrated, or uneducated when it comes to their condition, predicament, and the care spectrum. These people are prone to lash out due to their emotional state. Being able to put yourself in their shoes is a valuable skill that improves your immediate response while helping to build a stronger relationship moving forward.
“ Being able to put yourself in their shoes is a valuable skill that improves your immediate response while helping to build a stronger relationship moving forward.”
Be Mindfully Transparent
It’s surprising how understanding people can be when they know the “why.” Being open and honest with disgruntled patients can help them to empathize with your situation. Much of the public aren’t familiar with the workforce crisis in senior care. So, when staffing limitations lead to things like delays or less facetime with a caregiver, they simply see it as bad service, or in the worst case, a personal vendetta. Being transparent and helping them understand why they may not be getting the level of care they expect can and does help to defuse the situation.
Senior Care Challenge #6: Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is a constant threat in all medical arenas. Ensuring the safety of your customers’ personal data while protecting yourself against attacks is paramount to running a successful facility and delivering the peace of mind to which your patients are entitled. But, with the ever-growing prevalence of attacks from cyber-criminals around the world, implementing effective cybersecurity at your senior care facility is a daunting proposition.
According to IT Solutions provider Prelude Services, “Approximately 75.7% of healthcare organizations have recently experienced a significant cybersecurity incident. While this estimate includes many types of healthcare environments, adult care facilities may be even more vulnerable. These small organizations don’t have the same resources and cybersecurity infrastructure as large medical centers.”
Long-term and post-acute care centers are particularly vulnerable and lucrative targets because patients often have excellent credit scores, tend to be less tech-savvy, and are more trusting.
How to deal with it:
Listen to the Experts
Prelude Services recommends the following practices to secure your facility’s data:
Install an email protection system to fend off phishing scams.
Set up network management that encompasses network segmentation, physical security and guest access management, and intrusion prevention.
Implement an asset management system to maintain a complete, accurate record of all mobile devices, on-site servers, laptops, and USB drives.
Regularly back up and encrypt data.
Senior Care Challenge #7: Customer Complaints & Negative Reviews
Often, complaints are opportunities in disguise. Whether they come in the form of a bad review, a negative survey response, or a direct complaint to a supervisor, there are usually valuable nuggets you can unearth from mining through poor feedback. Everyone has problems and complaints, it's how you respond to those complaints that will make or break you.
How to deal with it:
Don’t Take it Personally
Even if a complaint is specifically about you, don’t take it personally. If it’s upsetting, walk away from the situation until you can dig into it rationally. Reviewing a critique with a level head can help you uncover opportunities to improve the service you’re providing and hone your skills.
Respond Quickly
"Response to Problems" is one of the highest correlated items to overall satisfaction. Responding quickly lets a patient or their family know you’re taking their complaint or issue seriously. If you don’t have an immediate solution, let the customer know you’re working on it and will be in touch as soon as possible.
Some solutions like Pinnacle’s customer satisfaction surveys gather in-depth feedback over the phone that can help pinpoint the root cause and expedite a positive outcome. Regardless of your methodology, quickly responding to complaints pays dividends in terms of retaining current patients and getting referrals for new ones.
Don’t Sweat Every Complaint
While you don’t want to ignore negative feedback, you also don’t need to fret every one-star review or thumbs down that comes your way. Doing so can negatively impact performance. Instead, look for common themes or patterns and develop a plan for improvement.
Add a Personal Touch
If the opportunity is there to do so, respond in person. This shows you value the person, their opinion, and their happiness. Additionally, speaking to a disgruntled customer can provide more context to help you understand their complaint, which allows you to finetune your solution.
Like any industry, senior care has its fair share of challenges. The preceding tips will hopefully help you the next time you encounter one.
For more information on how to identify customer problems, explore our customer satisfaction survey solution. If you’re experiencing problems within your workforce, see how Retain can help .