Welcome to hub-based long-term care. It’s not a reality yet, but it might be in the near future, if some of the field’s deepest thinkers have their way.
This new approach lets consumers go through central doorways to find best-fit services. Regardless of whether that means skilled care, senior living, home care — or another option.
The full details appear in a brilliant September report by Nexus Insights titled, “Where Am I, Where Do I Go: The Missing Entry Point to Long-Term Care Solutions for Older Adults and Their Caregivers.”
The organization’s founder, Bob Kramer (also cofounder of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care), is a key advocate. He said such a shift would make the search for LTC less confusing and more efficient.
“Skilled nursing more than ever has to recognize it’s not about fighting to get people to come to their setting and holding onto them as long as possible so they can bill as much as possible,” Kramer told my colleague Joe Bush. “It’s rather demonstrating they’re very much part of a larger continuum and for many skilled providers that means an opportunity to think about their customer and resident in a much broader sense.”
The late Steve Jobs said that good ideas are worth nothing unless executed. There’s no doubt that a hub-based approach would greatly improve the way long-term care is delivered. But will it ever be executed?
Clearly, at least two hurdles will need to be overcome.
One is the nursing home industry itself. Yes, some of the 15,000 or so of the nation’s facilities would benefit under a hub-based approach. Others, however, would not. And as a general rule, organizations don’t typically rally around changes that might prove harmful or worse.
Then there’s the small matter of paying for this new system. The report recommends a public-private partnership for LTC. That might be a tough sell.
This project might have to join the back of a very long line.
Regardless, I want to wish Nexus Insights good luck in improving our nation’s dysfunctional long-term care system. We’ll certainly keep an eye on what happens. Or doesn’t.
From the October 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
