When long-term care opinion leaders were surveyed about the challenges facing our long-term care delivery and financing system, the challenge they named most often was the workforce.
The first national survey of what long-term care experts think about the state of long-term care in the U.S.A. and how it can be reformed tallied the responses of 1,147 people (44.5 percent of those polled) to an online questionnaire. According to The Commonwealth Fund Long-Term Care Opinion Leader Survey: Top-Level Findings, (pdf), a one-page summary of its findings, the survey was intended to “help move the LTC reform debate forward,” as we cannot afford to wait any longer to prepare for the coming baby boomer age wave.
More than four in five respondents ranked workforce among the top three challenges facing long-term care, putting it far ahead of any other concern. The three most-cited challenges were:
- Workforce: 85 percent
- Financing: 66 percent
- Achieving quality: 60 percent
The great majority of the respondents (85%) said that improved work environments and increased compensation are the keys to recruiting and retaining direct-care workers.
Almost a third (31.8%) of the respondents were public officials, about a quarter each were providers (25.9%) and policy experts (24.3%), 10.6% were consumer advocates, and 7.3% checked the “other” box.
Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org
