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A new American Health Care Association (AHCA) paper presents more than 100 strategies that are designed to improve staff satisfaction among long-term care workers, including direct-care staff, in nursing homes. Read the full story

As the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes campaign enters its second year, an overhaul of its original eight goals has been announced. Three of these goals relate directly to the workforce. Read the full story

Check out the newest additions to PHI’s National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce:

Increasing staff retention – A fact sheet from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes campaign.

The interplay of CNAs’ views of residents and nursing home environments – Identifies CNAs’ perspectives of nursing home residents and how these perspectives translate into care practices.

Growing your staff – Reports on several nursing homes’ efforts to address the nursing and direct-care workforce shortages.

An information-based approach to staff efficiency – This article advocates reorganization of workflow and realignment of workload to address retention and attendance problems in nursing homes.

PHI’s National Clearinghouse on the Direct Care Workforce is a national online library for people in search of solutions to the direct-care staffing crisis in long-term care. It houses  over 800 articles, reports, issue briefs, and fact sheets on the direct-care workforce.

The July issue of The Gerontologist featured the results of the Better Jobs Better Care initiative, the four-year $15.5 million research and demonstration project that was the largest initiative in the nation ever created to address the high vacancy and turnover rates of direct-care workers by improving the quality of direct-care jobs. Read the full story

A big part of PHI’s work is helping long-term care organizations improve staff retention. That’s because staff retention is critical to the quality of care.

If you are considering a nursing home for a loved one, staff turnover is definitely something you will want to inquire about.

Advancing Excellence, a campaign to improve the quality of America’s nursing homes, has eight primary goals for improving quality care, one of which is staff retention. For this goal, Advancing Excellence has developed a fact sheet for consumers (pdf), which suggests good questions to ask when judging the quality of nursing home care. For example: Read the full story

Carol Rodat (pictured), PHI’s New York Policy Director, was the keynote speaker at the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute’s Annual Conference on September 18.

Her address, titled “The Workforce Crisis in Long Term Care: Proven Tools to Help Meet the Challenge,” laid out the demographic imperative for improving the quality of direct-care jobs through evidence-based practices that improve retention. Read the full story