Robust ownership data could drive healthier nursing home deals: study author

Greater insight into potential buyers is just one possible benefit of rules that would make publicly available more information about private equity and real estate investment trust ownership of nursing homes.

That was the take Monday from two academics who have spent the last several years researching investment activity in nursing homes and other aging services sectors. Professors David Stevenson of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Tyler Brau of Weill Cornell Medical College, co-authors of the first paper examining REIT influence on staffing, joined the LeadingAge Policy Update call Monday.

The duo’s Health Affairs paper was the first to examine how REIT ownership was tied to changes in staffing, finding that per-day registered nurse staffing can decline by as much as 6.25% in two to three years after initial investment in a skilled nursing facility.

The authors called that process labor-intensive, noting that they had to cull figures from multiple sources and tie them back to specific nursing homes in other data sources.