Washington, DC – The American Health Care Association (AHCA) recently helped launch the Champion Nursing Coalition, a diverse group of organizations representing consumers, insurers, businesses, health care providers and others committed to highlighting the nation’s severe nursing shortage and its impact on health care quality, access and cost.
“AHCA/NCAL is committed to fostering a stable and well-prepared workforce, because consumers deserve the highest quality long term care and services, and caregivers deserve positive and supportive work environments,” stated Bruce Yarwood, President and CEO of AHCA/NCAL. “With nearly 110,000 current caregiving vacancies in nursing facilities nationwide, it is critical that this crisis be addressed immediately for those who need care now, and in the future.”
Partnering with The Center to Champion Nursing in America, AHCA and others launched the coalition at a Capitol Hill breakfast and panel discussion where the organizations pledged to spread the urgent message that finding solutions to the nursing shortage is essential to meaningful health care reform. The shortage is compounded by over 99,000 qualified applicants being turned away from nursing schools in 2008.
In a statement presented at Congressional panel discussion, Yarwood detailed the need to address the long term care workforce crisis: Promoting and passing sound fiscal and public policies designed to strengthen our workforce and promote the continued improvement in seniors’ care quality deserves to be a top national priority – since many caregivers are retiring and are joining other retirees in need of care and services. While efforts to recruit and train new qualified long term caregivers are costly, our profession has continued to aggressively pursue potential nurses and caregivers. An unfortunate truth exists that nursing education programs are forced to turn away well-qualified applicants for the sole reason that there are not enough nurse faculty to educate these potential caregivers.
“AHCA/NCAL has long recognized that the provision of high quality long term care and services is dependent upon a stable, well-trained, and dedicated workforce,” Yarwood concluded. “As the profession responsible for the care of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens, we are proud of the advances we have made in delivering high quality long term care services and we remain committed to sustaining these gains in the years and decades ahead.”
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.