Staffing pressures at a county-owned nursing home in New Jersey are so challenging that elected leaders have asked the state to take over the site and convert it into a veterans home.
It is the latest example of the mounting pressures on local government-run facilities, whose numbers have been dwindling over the last two decades.
While the Atlantic County nursing home would technically remain public if a proposal were accepted by the state’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, its 200 beds would then be restricted to veterans and not guaranteed to area residents.
Already, the nursing home has been increasingly unable to care for local patients; staffing issues had reduced capacity to 100 beds, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
The Meadowview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Northfield is one of New Jersey’s few remaining county-owned nursing homes.
Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson said there were 23 county-owned nursing homes in New Jersey when he was first elected in 1999, but after most were shown to be losing money year over year, that is down to three — including Meadowview.
A 2022 report from the National Association of Counties found there were 758 county-owned or operated long-term care facilities, but that included county-provided community-based services. At that time, there were already 10 states with no county-supported facilities, and some states carried more than their share of the public-owned operations. Counties in Indiana and Texas, for example, maintained more than 100 nursing homes per state.
But pressures have continued to mount since 2022, leading to the conversion of more public facilities into privately owned operations. New Jersey has not escaped that movement.
Other NJ facilities privatized
Cape May County leased its Crest Haven Nursing & Rehabilitation Center to Allaire Health Services in a 10-year deal that began last January.
Allaire has taken over 13 former county or otherwise publicly owned nursing homes. That’s half of its six-state, 26-facility footprint.
CEO Ben Kurland told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News this week that stepping in to revive often underperforming public nursing homes can be beneficial both to the company assuming operations and the local community.
That’s not just because they come in with efficiencies and technologies meant specifically for long-term care.
“Healthcare, as an industry, is hard, and to be successful in the current environment it requires specialized and focused knowledge,” Kurland said. “While governmental bodies can be generally successful, healthcare requires and demands specificity.”
Despite some who have decried the loss of public nursing homes, Kurland said Allaire specifically embraces a philosophy “that profitability and success cannot be achieved by cutting.
“Rather, there must be a strategic approach to cost management, service delivery, and to providing a patient experience that is second to none,” he said.
Improving the reputation of the local nursing home can help fuel the cycle needed to keep and attract new staff, and to then become an in-demand resource for referral partners and residents-turned-patients.
“We have a commitment to ensuring that local employees have local opportunities — so much so that we invest in their growth and development, focus on their advancement, and ensure that they have every opportunity to be the best version of themselves,” Kurland said. “Because of this commitment, we typically see improvements in outcomes, scores, and employee retention.
County wants veterans option over sale
In an Aug. 9 letter to the state, Levinson said the county had been approached by companies interested in buying the nursing home in Northfield. But he would prefer to see the state add it to its trio of dedicated veterans facilities, citing local need and an existing 30-bed veterans wing there.
The state’s three long-term care facilities for veterans in Vineland, Paramus and Menlo Park have had their own issues, including a long waiting list and major concerns about patient safety during the pandemic.
A 2023 report from the Department of Justice found the nursing homes in Menlo Park and Paramus violated residents’ Constitutional rights, citing “a systemic inability to implement clinical care policy, poor communication between management and staff and a failure to ensure basic staff competency.”
But Levinson told local media he gets frequent calls from county residents who can’t get into Vineland but don’t qualify for VA coverage at Meadowview. An additional facility, he said, could help alleviate some demand.
The county would require the state to agree to keep the existing staff before any transfer, Levinson said, at least at their current salaries and benefits. A deal with the state, according to County Administrator Jerry DelRosso, would allow non-veteran residents at Meadowview to stay until they want to move out or have died.
