Washington, DC – The American Health Care Association (AHCA) praised the results of the new 
2008 National Survey of Consumer and Workforce Satisfaction in Nursing Homes released today by independent research firm My InnerView (MIV) finding 85 percent of consumers report their satisfaction as either “excellent” or “good”, while 66 percent of care staff also say their facility is an “excellent” or “good” place to work.
“As these satisfaction levels represent the highest levels yet in terms of consumer and staff satisfaction, we applaud not just the efforts of care giving staff nationwide, but the study itself – because its statistical findings are the result of a highly transparent process that empowers consumers with increasing amounts of objective data,” said Bruce Yarwood, President and CEO of AHCA. “Establishing data-driven benchmarks is also highly beneficial to our federal and state policymakers as they wrestle with some of the most significant health care reform measures and financial challanges in recent memory.”
States the new MIV study: “Although satisfaction levels are high, job stress is a significant opportunity for nursing home leaders to address in order to improve nurse and nursing assistants’ satisfaction, while meeting resident choices and preferences is one of the top priority items for improving resident and family satisfaction.” Other highlights of the report include data that support the view of aligning financial incentives with organizational performance.
MIV officials note increases in survey participation have driven the size of the report’s database to an all time high. Every year since 2005, the number of nursing homes participating in the voluntary surveys has increased — reaching one in every three facilities in the United States as of 2008. According to the report, responses from 223,449 employees, 54,711 residents and 146,949 family members in 5,075 nursing facilities across the United States are included in the study.
“This MIV data demonstrates once again how workforce improvements go hand-in-hand with increased levels of consumer satisfaction, and ultimately quality,” Yarwood continued. “The long term care profession is proud to encourage our membership to participate in this unprecedented data compilation effort as well as the fact the data has shown improvement each year it has been released. We recognize there is always room for improvement, but we are cognizant of the fact that from a profession-wide standpoint, we are collectively headed in the right direction in the areas that matter most, especially customer satisfaction.”
As the nation’s largest association of long term and post-acute care providers, the American Health Care Association (AHCA) advocates for quality care and services for frail, elderly and disabled Americans. Compassionate and caring employees provide essential care to one million individuals in our 11,000 not-for-profit and proprietary member facilities.