A new $70 million skilled nursing facility takes aim squarely at alleviating the type of hospital patient discharge backlogs that have increasingly plagued healthcare providers across the US.
Limited short-term rehabilitation beds in skilled nursing facilities have led to long delays for patients who are healthy enough to leave a hospital stay but not yet ready to be released to their homes.
These backlogs have been felt across the country — both in populous, largely urban areas like Massachusetts and in rural states such as Nebraska.
The planned Anchorage, AK, facility would be a major addition to skilled nursing in the state — which has the fewest skilled nursing beds per capita in the country, according to sector experts.
The new SNF is planned to break ground in the coming months and has a targeted completion date of summer 2026. It will have 78 beds.
The project has been set underway by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, an association providing health care across the care continuum to Alaska Native people in the state.
The Alaska Native population is growing, and growing older, ANTHC interim president and CEO told Anchorage Daily News. That mirrors trends across the county broadly.
“On any given day, we have 20 to 35 patients at ANMC [the Alaska Native Medical Center] that are well enough to leave the hospital but not quite well enough to go home,” she said in reporting published Thursday. “The skilled nursing facility will be that place where those patients can go to that will free up those beds and allow flow-through.”
Alaska consistently ranks as among the most expensive states for access to nursing home care. Combined with a separate ongoing hospital expansion program, the ANTHC hopes to make a significant dent in the care delays experienced by seniors in its care.
Despite the $70 million investment, however, providers with ANTHC stressed that more action must be taken to holistically address the backlog issue.
“While this project is a historic investment that advances self-determination in the healthcare Alaska Native and American Indian people in our state receive, it will not resolve the significant statewide long-term care needs we recognize will need to be addressed in the future,” ANTHC representatives wrote in a June 27 statement — adding that “the short-term skilled nursing facility is a significant step forward and one of many efforts under way to improve patient experience and optimize capacity within ANMC.”
