News

LeadingAge Minnesota has developed a new Safe Care for Seniors resource to help you ensure safe and consistent I’m Okay and Resident Safety Checks.

LeadingAge MN Foundation and Trellis are offering a free introductory course on writing a successful grant proposal. Choose from two different dates below. Both will be held via Zoom:

The US Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released a free downloadable manual, Psychosocial Interventions for Older Adults with Serious Mental Illness.

Last week we talked about bringing more joy to your workplace by starting your meetings by sharing one good thing. Another simple way to share good things and boost positive emotions in the workplace is to hang posters on the walls around the campus or in the breakroom to record and share good things visually. Get the list started and encourage others to add their own good things.

The Minnesota Health Care Loan Forgiveness program cycle opens Nov. 1 and is accepting applications through Jan. 17, 2022. The Loan Forgiveness program is available for various health care professionals serving in high-need areas, including nurses in nursing homes, assisted living, and home care settings. Please join the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) team for a webinar to learn more about this program on Wednesday, Dec. 8 from 9-10 a.m. Register here.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.

Do you want to bring more joy to your workplace? One way to start is the way you begin meetings.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.

To help raise awareness of sexual assault, an issue that can be difficult to address, the State Civil Money Penalty (CMP) Committee has developed a set of materials that you can use to train on this serious topic.

Looking for a way to grow caregivers within your organization or help staff advance in their career path? Northwest Technical College is offering an online course to advance the specialty of caregivers in aging services. The Gerontology and Aging Care program is a two-semester online course that is appropriate for any staff member. Caregivers, culinary staff, housekeeping, administration, and other team members can benefit from specializing in gerontology.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.

Looking for a way to grow caregivers within your organization or help staff advance in their career path? Northwest Technical College is offering an online course to advance the specialty of caregivers in aging services.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.

The greatest act of kindness that you can practice without any cost and minimal effort is being kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for things not in your control. Use kind words when you talk to yourself – do what you can, do not dwell on what you cannot. Practice kindness on yourself and being kind to others will come naturally (Ghate, 2021).

The National Association of Health Care Assistants (NAHCA) is hosting a workshop titled, The New CNA Workforce: Frontline Lessons from the Pandemic on Nov. 10 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Register here today!

Nearly 70% of nursing homes are pausing admissions due to staff shortage

ST. PAUL, MN (Oct. 7, 2021) – Reaffirming that Minnesota’s workforce shortage in senior care continues to grow, a recent survey of more than 300 Minnesota senior care providers conducted by the Long-Term Care Imperative revealed that 69% of Minnesota nursing homes and 29% of assisted living locations have placed limits on new resident admissions because of an inability to fill staff positions.  

With over 23,000 direct care positions currently vacant across the state, the expanding worker shortage is challenging the ability of senior caregivers to provide care to Minnesota’s rapidly growing senior population and support hospitals that are seeking to discharge patients into care facilities. According to the survey, in August the number of resignations of long-term care professionals exceeded new hires by approximately 2,000 workers.

 “The data on open positions and staff retention confirms that a growing number of elderly Minnesotans will not receive the care they need in our settings, and families will be limited in their choices when they most need our services.  State leaders need to step forward with both emergency action and long-term solutions to help attract and retain workers in the profession of senior care,” said Patti Cullen, CEO of Care Providers of Minnesota.

Shortages exist across the spectrum of long-term care positions, including Certified Nursing Assistants, Registered Nurses, laundry and nutrition services. Nursing homes in every region of the state reported double-digit percentages of unfilled positions for direct care workers, which account for over half of reported vacancies. At nursing homes in the Twin Cities metro, roughly 1 in 4 direct care and nurse practitioner positions stand empty. In just the month of August, an estimated 7,975 senior care workers resigned from their jobs in long-term care to seek work in other fields.

Gayle Kvenvold, CEO of LeadingAge Minnesota explained, “Our caregivers deserve the pay that reflects the importance of their work and helps providers deliver safe, quality care to all who need their critical services. Even with the widespread use of overtime pay and bonuses, more caregivers are leaving our field than joining it. We need a commitment from the state to invest in higher wages to guarantee seniors receive the care they need when they need it in all the communities they call home.”

The Long-Term Care Imperative is calling on state policymakers to address the crisis with immediate emergency staffing as well as long-term reforms to ensure competitive wages for caregivers. The highly regulated nature of senior care makes it immensely difficult to address these issues without financial support and regulatory relief from state government. State regulators set the daily rate charged by nursing homes for both privately paying residents and those receiving state support. In addition, senior care providers must wait 21 months after providing care to receive reimbursement from the State. The increased costs to attract new workers, intense competition for jobs, delayed reimbursement and modest growth in Medical Assistance funding combine to make it difficult for providers to adapt to the changes in the labor market for senior caregivers.

Kvenvold said, “This workforce problem won’t be solved with a one-time infusion of dollars into senior care reimbursement. Without more significant investments in the senior care workforce and changes to the reimbursement system to allow this to happen, this crisis will threaten the availability of care for the most vulnerable at a time when we are facing the largest population of seniors in American history.”

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The Long-Term Care Imperative is a collaboration of LeadingAge Minnesota and Care Providers of Minnesota, two of the state’s largest long-term care associations. The Long-Term Care Imperative is committed to advancing a shared vision and future for older adult housing, health care and supportive services.

CONTACT: Libbie Chapuran
lchapuran@leadingagemn.org
715-216-1057

Sharing your Random Acts of Kindness can make others more aware of the many opportunities around them to perform random acts of kindness every day. Self Care for Safe Care Random Acts of Kindness Posters can be printed and placed throughout your community to encourage sharing examples of acts of kindness with others. 

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is seeking proposals from qualified Minnesota Medicaid-certified nursing facilities interested in implementing a resident and family peer support group program.

Care centers have access to an engagement, retention, and leadership building platform for free through a grant for Align’s Employee Engagement Solution. A new grant window opened on Sept. 22 and closes on Nov. 23. Subsequent cycles will open over the next two years.