Statistics show that there are around 17,000 nursing homes in the United States. A small percentage are owned and operated by the government, and about a quarter is non-profit, but the remaining majority of nursing homes are propriety, for-profit businesses striving for success while also aiming to offer the very best levels of care and support for their residents.
When choosing a nursing home, families tend to be very discerning. They want the finest standards of care for their loved ones, and it's only natural that people put a lot of thought and consideration into such a big decision. So how can nursing homes appeal to more people, gain more residents, and strengthen their businesses overall? Here are a few tips to help out.
Keep Up with Compliance
One of the first tips for any nursing homeowner or operator to keep in mind is to make sure that you're staying up to date with all the latest rules, regulations, and compliance requirements for your facility. Nursing homes do very important work and require certain documents and licenses in order to operate and maintain their Medicaid/Medicare certifications.
It's up to you to carry out the necessary research to stay aware of what your business needs to do in order to maintain these certifications and keep up with compliance requirements. If you're unsure of anything, there are agencies out there who can help, and there are plenty of additional licenses and certifications you could apply for to make your facility even more appealing and respected.
Maintain the Highest Standards of Care
Ultimately, a nursing home's purpose is to provide care and support for its residents during the latter years of their lives. Your facility needs to be a place where people can feel comforted, supported, and care for, not just for their own sake, but for the peace of mind of their families too. Unfortunately, studies and reports show that a lot of for-profit homes have substandard levels of care or even instances of resident abuse.
It's vital to ensure that your business doesn't make the same mistakes. Make patient care your top priority. The five-star quality rating system exists to show exactly what sort of levels of service your facility provides, and any nursing home that wants to be successful and seen as one of the best should be pushing for that 5-star rating. If you feel that your facility is falling short, make the necessary changes to get back on track.
Don't Settle
Following on from the previous point, it's important in any line of work to not simply settle for the way things are or feel like your business has grown as much as it can. If you want success, you have to keep on pushing it for at all times, and this is especially true in the field of nursing homes; no home, even a highly-rated and successful one, should simply settle and stop trying to improve.
You should always be looking for ways to get better and seeking out ways to improve your facilities and standards of care. No home is perfect, and there are always tools, services, equipment, and so on out there that can make your facility even more appealing, safe, comfortable, and enjoyable for both staff and residents alike, from care planning software that helps staff manage time more effectively to additional activities and games for residents to enjoy.
Hire the Best People
Nursing homes are dependent on their employees. It's the workers you choose to hire who will have the biggest influence on whether or not your home is a success. The best homes hire people who truly care about helping others and have the necessary qualifications, experiences, and passions required to excel in this line of work, while lesser homes don't have such strict hiring requirements or processes.
In order to help your home be as good as it can be, it's wise to evaluate and assess your current hiring procedure and standards. Perhaps you're limiting your company by only using certain recruitment channels, for example, or maybe your selection and interviewing process isn't strict enough, so could be letting lower quality workers get through and affect the whole home in a negative way.
Final Word
Running a successful nursing home isn't easy, but if you want to be successful in this business, you need to be able to rise to the challenge and make the necessary changes and improvements over time. Follow these tips and set up the best nursing home you possibly can.
