‘Staggering’ 75% of nursing homes almost never meet expected RN staffing levels, study finds

Three-fourths of the nation’s nursing homes never meet federal staffing expectations for registered nurse staffing, and RNs are often missing from such facilities on the weekends, according to a new review of a year’s worth of payroll data.

The research also found that 70% of facilities self-reported higher total direct staffing under the CASPER system than in the now-standard Payroll-Based Journal. The discrepancy was most pronounced at for-profit facilities, followed by non-profits and then government-run buildings.

Researchers from Harvard and Vanderbilt medical schools examined records from 15,399 nursing homes covering April 2017 through March 2018. Their results were published online by Health Affairs Monday afternoon.