Expected growth is creating opportunities in senior home healthcare industry

StatePoint Media - Medical professionals, patients and their families are increasingly seeing the value of home care, and the industry is expected to grow. In fact, home health and personal care aide job openings are projected to grow 33% from 2020 to 2030, with experts predicting an estimated 8.2 million job openings in home-based care by 2028. Industry experts say that workers from all backgrounds, not just nursing, will be needed now and in the future.

"If you enjoy working with people and helping others when they need it most, a job as a home care or hospice nurse, home health aide, personal companion or caregiver could be a good fit for you," says Jennifer Sheets, president and chief executive officer of industry leader, Interim HealthCare Inc. "Likewise, if you're currently a medical professional seeking more flexibility and to be reminded of why you entered the field in the first place, home healthcare can offer greater job satisfaction and a much-needed change of pace."

To help potential job candidates understand this growing industry, Interim HealthCare is sharing some quick insights:

Why In-Home Care?

Home care describes personal care and support services provided to an individual in their home. Often referred to as senior care, it provides help with the activities of daily living as well as companionship to those who need support to maintain their independence at home. Home healthcare on the other hand, entails medical-based care to help patients recover from an illness or injury, or to provide in-home medical oversight and ongoing care for complex, chronic medical conditions. Many families and patients can testify to the various ways home care can be a game-changer, and a growing number of physicians and medical professionals are recommending home health services to patients of all ages because it delivers cost-effective, high-quality care in the setting where patients most often want to be -- home. Among these services are in-home nursing, physical, occupational and speech therapy, hospice care and bereavement services.

What Employers Want

Those in the know at Interim HealthCare say that being compassionate, trustworthy, dependable and having the ability to work independently can help you thrive in the field of home care. "Made for This," Interim's current recruitment campaign, highlights the company's need for registered nurses, licensed practical and vocational nurses, along with certified nursing assistants, home care aides, home physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists. Veterans, with their track record of serving and protecting others, are encouraged to apply for a home care job, along with anybody who thrives in a job that offers variety, challenge and new faces and places.

What to Look for in Employers

Seeking a career in the field of home care? Be sure you work for a home healthcare organization with a positive work culture that has your best interests in mind. That includes offering good work-life balance, flexible schedules, rewarding assignments and competitive pay. The employer should also prioritize your continuing education and professional development by offering advanced learning opportunities and room for growth, along with additional perks like tuition discounts, to make it all possible.

For a home healthcare career guidebook, visit info.interimhealthcare.com/jobs-in-home-healthcare.

As demand for medical and personal care in the home grows, consider a career in this thriving field, whether you're entering the workforce for the first time or embarking on a career change.

Families are not happy with states requiring Covid tests for nursing home visits

This is a huge inconvenience, but what’s most upsetting is that no one seems to have any kind of long-term plan for families and residents

by Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News

As covid-19 cases rise again in nursing homes, a few states have begun requiring visitors to present proof that they’re not infected before entering facilities, stoking frustration and dismay among family members.

Officials in California, New York, and Rhode Island say new covid testing requirements are necessary to protect residents — an enormously vulnerable population — from exposure to the highly contagious omicron variant. But many family members say they can’t secure tests amid enormous demand and scarce supplies, leaving them unable to see loved ones. And being shut out of facilities feels unbearable, like a nightmare recurring without end.

Photo: Avelino Calvar Martinez/Burst

Severe staff shortages are complicating the effort to ensure safety while keeping facilities open; these shortages also jeopardize care at long-term care facilities — a concern of many family members.

Andrea DuBrow’s 75-year-old mother, who has severe Alzheimer’s disease, has lived for almost four years in a nursing home in Danville, California. When DuBrow wasn’t able to see her for months earlier in the pandemic, she said, her mother forgot who she was.

"This latest restriction is essentially another lockdown," DuBrow said at a meeting last week about California’s new regulations. "The time that my mom has left when she can recognize in some small locked-away part of her that it is me, her daughter, cleaning her, feeding her, holding her hand, singing her favorite songs — that time is being stolen from us."

"This is a huge inconvenience, but what’s most upsetting is that no one seems to have any kind of long-term plan for families and residents," said Ozzie Rohm, whose 94-year-old father lives in a San Francisco nursing home.

Why are family members subject to testing requirements that aren’t applied to staffers, Rohm wondered. If family members are vaccinated and boosted, wear good masks, stay in a resident’s room, and practice rigorous hand hygiene, do they pose more of a risk than staffers who follow these procedures?

California was the first state to announce new policies for visitors to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities on Dec. 31. Those took effect on Jan. 7 and remain in place for at least 30 days. To see a resident, a person must show evidence of a negative covid rapid test taken within 24 hours or a PCR test taken within 48 hours. Also, covid vaccinations are required.

In a statement announcing the new policy, the California Department of Public Health cited "the greater transmissibility" of the omicron variant and the need to "protect the particularly vulnerable populations in long-term care settings." Throughout the pandemic, nursing home residents have suffered disproportionately high rates of illness and death.

New York followed California with a Jan. 7 announcement that nursing home visitors would need to show proof of a negative rapid test taken no more than a day before. And on Jan. 10, Rhode Island announced a new rule requiring proof of vaccination or a negative covid test.

Patient advocates are worried other states might adopt similar measures. "We are concerned that Omicron will be used as an excuse to shut down visitation again," said Sam Brooks, program and policy manager for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy group for people living in these facilities.

"We do not want to go back to the past two years of lockdowns in nursing homes and resident isolation and neglect," he continued.

That’s also a priority for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which has emphasized since Nov. 12 residents’ right to receive visitors without restriction as long as safety protocols are followed. Nursing homes could encourage but not require visitors to take tests in advance or provide proof of covid vaccination, guidance from CMS explained. Safety protocols included wearing masks, rigorous hand hygiene, and maintaining adequate physical distance from other residents.

With the rise of omicron, however, facilities pushed back. On Dec. 17, an organization representing nursing home medical directors and two national long-term care associations sent a letter to CMS’ administrator asking for more flexibility to "protect resident safety" and "place temporary visitation restrictions in nursing homes." On Jan. 6, CMS affirmed residents’ right to visitation but said states could "take additional measures to make visitation safer."

Asked for comment about the states’ recent actions, the federal agency said in a statement to KHN that "a state may require nursing homes to test visitors as long as the facility provides the rapid antigen tests, and there are enough testing supplies. … However, if there are not enough rapid testing supplies, the visits must be allowed to occur without a test (while still adhering to other practices, such as masking and physical distancing)."

Some relief from test shortages may be at hand under the Biden administration’s new plan to distribute four free tests per household. But for family members who visit nursing home residents several times a week, that supply won’t go very far.

Since the start of the year, tension over the balance between safety and residents’ rights to visitation has intensified. In the week ended Jan. 9, 57,243 nursing home staffers reported covid infections, almost 10 times as many as three weeks before. During the same period, resident infections rose to 32,061, almost eight times as many as three weeks earlier.

But outbreaks are occurring against a different backdrop today. More than 87% of nursing home residents have been fully vaccinated, according to CMS, and 63% have also received boosters, reducing the risk that covid poses. Also, nursing homes have gained experience handling outbreaks. And the toll of nursing home lockdowns — loneliness, despair, neglect, and physical deterioration — is now far better understood.

"We have all seen the negative effects of restricting visitation on residents’ health and well-being," said Joseph Gaugler, a professor who studies long-term care at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. "For nursing homes to go back into a bunker mentality and shut everything down, that’s not a solution."

Amid egregious staffing shortages, "we need people in these buildings who can take care of residents, and often those are visitors who are basically functioning as unpaid certified nursing assistants: grooming and toileting residents, turning and repositioning them, feeding them, stretching, and exercising them," said Tony Chicotel, a staff attorney at California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Nearly 420,000 staffers have left nursing homes since February 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, worsening existing shortages.

When DuBrow learned of California’s new testing requirement for visitors, she arranged to get a PCR test at a testing site on Jan. 6, expecting results within 48 hours. Instead, she waited 104 hours before getting a response. (Her test was negative.) Eager to visit her mother, DuBrow called every CVS, Walgreens, and Target in a 25-mile radius of her home asking for a test but came up empty.

In a statement, the California Department of Public Health said the state had established 6,288 covid testing sites and sent millions of at-home tests to counties and local jurisdictions.

Photo: John Cameron/Unsplash

In New York, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has pledged to deliver nearly 1 million covid tests to nursing homes, where visitors can take them on the spot, but that presents its own problems. "We don’t want to test visitors who are lining up at the door. We don’t have the clinical staff to do that, and we need to focus all our staff on the care of residents," said Stephen Hanse, president and CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association, an industry organization.

With current staff shortages, trying to ensure that visitors are wearing masks, physical distancing, and adhering to infection control practices is "taxing on the staff," said Janine Finck-Boyle, vice president of regulatory affairs at Leading Age, which represents not-for-profit long-term care providers.

"Really, the challenges are enormous," said Gaugler, of the University of Minnesota, "and I wish there were easy answers."

Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.

Share your Christmas spirit with others this season

By Glenn Mollette, Guest Commentator

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Years ago, our church group was out Christmas caroling. We weren't far from the church and our leader led us out to the back of Mr. Castle's house to sing to he and his wife. His wife came to the door and greeted us with a smile and was gracious.

We sang to her when suddenly through the window we saw her husband appear in the family room with a big towel around his body. He obviously had just gotten out of the shower. He came into his family room unknowing that 20 carolers had all eyes on him. Several of the women began to chuckle. I just knew we were all about to see something we had not planned on.

Sitting down on his sofa he put his feet up and was preparing to relax. The volume of laughter from a couple of his adult friends grew louder when Mr. Castle looked up and saw us. He immediately made an "Oh no" expression while shaking his head a bit and jumped up and departed to another part of the house.

We sang to his sweet wife and moved on down the street with a new visual that I still remember to this day. I'll always remember what a good spirit he and his wife had and that we all left feeling uplifted by them.

This week I walked to the back of a local nursing home to look through a window to see a friend. Ms. Southard is 99.

My wife and I visited in her home recently. She was agile, mentally sharp and dancing around like she always does. Her attitude always lifts us up. She did say on that very day we were there, "I don't want to end up in a nursing home. I told my son I don't ever want to be in one."

Two weeks later while closing her curtains she made an awkward step, fell and broke her leg. Surgery was required and also rehabilitation. Her insurance plan would not pay for her to go to the local rehabilitation hospital but instead put her where she never wanted to be, a nursing home.

I found out from a nurse which room she was in and how to find the right window to look through. The nurse said she would meet me at the window and let Ms. Southard know I was there. I dreaded what I might see but wanted to wish her a Merry Christmas. Knocking on the window I was delighted that she was sitting up and started laughing and waving at me. We exchanged Merry Christmas the best we could yelling through a window. While I almost wanted to cry seeing her there, I was so encouraged by her good spirit.

The spirit of Christmas is inside you. This spirit is greater than you and I and pulls us through the awkward and the very difficult times of life.

The Christmas season we celebrate is one of hope and celebration. The story of Jesus is the story of God's hope coming to us in the little baby a long time ago.

2020 has certainly been a year we've needed hope. Vaccines for Covid-19 are coming and 2021 is going to be a better year.

May your spirit be rekindled. Share your spirit with others and may the year ahead be one of the best ever for us all.

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Dr. Glenn Mollette is a syndicated American columnist and author of American Issues, Every American Has An Opinion and ten other books. He is read in all 50 states. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily representative of any other group or organization.

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This article is the sole opinions of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of PhotoNews Media. We welcome comments and views from our readers.

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