OHCA The Oregon Caregiver Fall Winter 2021

www.ohca.com FALL/WINTER 2021 The Oregon Caregiver 7 FEATURE In this article, several long term care pro- viders throughout Oregon share their stories of struggles and triumphs during the workforce crisis. In southern Oregon, chief clinical officer Tom Rollins of Prestige Care and administrator Matt Hamilton of Linda Vista Care Center in Ashland, which is owned by Prestige Care, have been busy keeping up with the daily changes that have affected how they operate. “As an operator, I like to project where we’re going to be in six-months and where we’re going to be in a year,” said Hamilton. “Throughout this whole scenario, it’s been, ‘what are we going to do next week? What are we going to do next month?’ That’s about as far ahead as a lot of us are able to look.” Although challenging, Hamilton said that planning ahead for staffing issues and potential crisis management has been important. “We’ve really worked hard with getting extra staff available. Sometimes that’s using hospitality to help loosen the burden on certified nursing assistants (CNAs). Down here in Southern Oregon, we’ve partnered with one of the local CNA schools and have run clinicals in the facilities every month. We take as many as we can out of those clinicals to help supplement the staffing. If there is an outbreak, then we do have some staff help mitigate the needs,” he said. Hamilton said there is an emphasis on contingency planning. “If we lose people out of dietary or if we lose people out of housekeeping, we have to figure out who’s going to be able to step in from our department heads to fill those roles. A lot of times, we think about just the CNAs, but the facilities are much more than that. If you don’t have housekeepers, then you’re in a crunch too,” he said. Another staffing issue is the increase of competition from other sectors. Rollins said, “We’re hiring against other markets that we’ve never been against before. Right now, as an industry, we’re struggling with dietary staff. We’re competing with all the restaurants that want to reopen. We are paying a lot of hiring bonuses, we have a scholarship program, and we’ve hired a full staff of recruiters who are just focused on hiring CNAs and nurses at this point, because that’s what we really need. We’ve increased wages, and sometimes it’s on the fly. If you’ve got a competitor across the street who wants to offer this amount of money to a nurse, then you have to make due. It’s not something you can have a big plan for because every day is a new day and you have completely new obstacles.” Despite all these challenges, Rollins is grateful for his colleagues and building leaders. “Our operators, like Matt and the administrators at all the buildings, have done just a phenomenal job in navigating the workforce challenges on top of COVID, on top of surveyors, on top of everything else that has been going on during this pandemic,” he said. Another challenge is the pipeline for new nurses. The primary nurse educator in Southern Oregon is Rogue Community College. “Their biggest issue with getting new nurses trained is they don’t have the instructors. That’s kind of a big bottle- neck with getting new nurses,” Hamilton said. He added, the shortage is also contributed by a larger number of nurses choosing to retire during the pandemic. One of the solutions that Hamilton said has worked for their building, has been national searches. “We’ve been pretty successful with that, with relocation bonuses that pay nurses to come to this area. We’re limited to who we can pull from, and rather than try to borrow from each other, we’re pulling from out of the state,” he said. To help with the relocation process, Rollins said that Prestige has supplied temporary housing, like AirBnB, across the board until new employees can find more permanent solutions. “Sometimes it’s a couple of months before any housing opens and they’re kind of grabbing what they can get,” he said. Lack of housing isn’t a new problem. Last summer, the fires in Ashland and Talent created an additional problem for long term care communities in the area, and Prestige had to put up staff into hotels. “They lost their houses. We put them into hotels and paid for it all, because we want to make sure we support our people, and we do the right thing. That’s what I appreciate about Prestige a lot,” said Rollins. Hamilton echoed the dedication to staff has helped the community with retention. “All through the COVID outbreaks, Prestige has been really strong about making sure that we’re supported with personal protective equipment. I remem- ber hearing stories of facilities that were having to use trash bags instead of gowns due to supply issues, and I will say that throughout any outbreak, we just never hit that point. We’ve always had whatever it takes to keep our staff safe and keep our residents safe,” he said. Looking ahead, Rollins said it would be helpful to see more continuity around regulations throughout the state. “My contacts at the Oregon Health Authority are wonderful, and then each county is so different. When you have a COVID case some counties say one thing, and then another county that’s literally across the street will tell you to do something totally different. Can we all talk the same talk, so we’re all doing the same thing, so we can see what’s working the best? That’s one of my wishes,” Rollins said. Although it has been a challenging couple of years, the concept of showing staff appreciation is more valuable now than ever. T he last two years shook the long term care sector to its core. COVID-19 has been a huge factor in recent industry challenges, but one of the biggest impacts from the pandemic comes from a challenge that existed prior to the spring of 2020: a shortage of qualified caregivers and staff. Nationally, workforce and hiring challenges persist across most sectors. In healthcare, this challenge is particularly pronounced and devastating—hospitals, clinics, long term care facilities, and in-home care agencies can’t simply close; they have to care for the people who are relying on them. CONTINUES »