The nursing home industry is suffering considerable negative media blows with stories reported on network TV, in national newspapers and magazines that highlight situations of substandard-care and nursing home closings.
The situation hit a federal nerve last month with President Clinton announcing a "tough new initiative" to ensure better quality of care. The initiative proposes stiffer background checks and more aggressive penalties for providers that violate state health codes.
So far, the industry's response has not allayed the "quality of care" fears of babyboomers - the most vocal consumer segment on the elderly care issue. Nursing home-abuses hit close to home with babyboomers for two reasons: they are caring for elderly parents and are concerned about whether their long-term care needs will be met.
To turn the tide of negative publicity, nursing home communicators must focus on community-based "success stories" and more aggressively target babyboomers with outreach campaigns.
"[Quality of care] is becoming a real public awareness issue for the industry because more and more people, especially babyboomers, are concerned about its [financial] future," says Laura Fenwick, associate director of community relations at the American Health Care Association, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization that represents 12,000 long-term care facilities nationwide.
Highlighting Success Stories
Much of the recent media attention has focused on instances of "substandard care" ranging from the growing lawsuits waged against nursing homes (Reuters, July 28) to a third of California nursing homes being tagged as "dangerous" (Washington Post). In the latter coverage, a third of California's 1,370 nursing homes were found to have serious safety problems, according to a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
"This kind of coverage is demoralizing to providers, [to overcome negative publicity] we recommend that our members highlight programs they've received recognition and awards for. In a sense they have to worry about their own facility and not get discouraged by what they hear in the media," says Fenwick.
That's exactly the tack Kennett Square, Pa.-based Genesis Health Ventures, the nation's fifth largest chain of nursing homes, is taking to rebound from a recent labor union attack on its quality of care.
Last month, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) released a damning report on Genesis ElderCare that claims the organization has a "pattern of inconsistent care" in 12 states where it owns and operates nursing homes due to insufficient staffing. It highlights 140 facilities that were under investigation by state inspectors from January 1994 to January 1998 and cited 1,652 instance where they failed to meet minimum federal resident-care requirements. SEIU, comprised of 600,000 members, is the country's largest union of healthcare workers.
The report also indicated that Genesis' managed care relationships with Blue Cross/Blue Shield Maryland and Crozer-Keystone Health System in Pennsylvania limited consumer choice to care offered by Genesis.
Genesis' PR engine quickly responded to the report through a press release that called the SEIU statistics flawed and focused on numerous staff development programs it has in place throughout its 38 centers.
The Genesis response was covered in local Pennsylvania newspapers.
The strategy, headed up by Jeanne Moore, Genesis PR director, focused on:
- A two-day "Focused Physical Assessment" program for nursing staff to improve their assessment skills.
- A new 10-day administrator program that reviews quality improvement issues.
- A one-day workshop for all staffing levels designed to increase skill knowledge on topics like dementia, dying and other sensitive elderly issues.
So far, the SEIU report hasn't hurt the joint venture relationship between Genesis and Crozer-Keystone, according to Gerald Miller, Crozer-Keystone's executive VP, who believes that the potential remains strong for the two organizations to launch new insurance products. Together, the two organizations own four long-term facilities. (Genesis, Jeanne Moore, 610/925-4024; SEIU, Jill Gallagher, 202/898-3336; AHCA, Laura Fenwick, 202/898-6305; Crozer-Keystone, 610/338-8211)
Evolving to Long-Term Care Insurance
The American Health Care Association (AHCA) is launching a public education campaign that calls for overhauling the way long-term care is funded. Its SecureCare proposal, introduced at a congressional hearing last month, is based on the premise that people who can pay for long-term care should do so, lessening the financial burden on federal programs.
AHCA believes SecureCare has strong potential, citing a 1995 Luntz public opinion poll that found three out of four Americans would want the government to shift long-term care out of the current Medicaid program and into a private long-term care insurance program.
The program, still in an early draft stage, will work with other healthcare providers, consumer and insurance groups, business leaders and policymakers to:
- Provide a public/private insurance-based benefit package.
- Maximize quality and control costs through market competition and consumer choice. Essentially private insurance would be expected to pay 25% of the nation's long-term care bill.
Source: AHCA (http://www.ahca.org)