Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment

One in three COVID-19 deaths in the United States occurred in a nursing home, raising questions about how nursing home facilities might improve organizational performance on resident health outcomes. Though researchers have linked workforce practices to organizational performance on patient health,...

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Main Author: Scott, K. MacKenzie
Other Authors: Osterman, Paul
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/152715
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7363-9356
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author Scott, K. MacKenzie
author2 Osterman, Paul
author_facet Osterman, Paul
Scott, K. MacKenzie
author_sort Scott, K. MacKenzie
collection MIT
description One in three COVID-19 deaths in the United States occurred in a nursing home, raising questions about how nursing home facilities might improve organizational performance on resident health outcomes. Though researchers have linked workforce practices to organizational performance on patient health, it is less clear whether the predictors of organizational performance look different for pandemic infection, relative to other health conditions. To address this gap, this paper links workforce practices with both pre-pandemic resident health conditions and with COVID-19 outcomes. The analysis relies on multivariate and logistic regressions using two novel datasets that link multiple administrative sources before and during the pandemic. It evaluates how workforce practices such as pay, staff hours per resident, outsourcing, and overtime relate to resident health in both contexts. Whereas estimates show that workforce practices for Registered Nurses are the primary driver of resident health before the pandemic, outsourcing is more important to predicting COVID-19 infections and mortality. Specifically, outsourcing care work before the pandemic is associated with a one percentage point decrease in COVID-19 mortality during the crisis, conditional on at least one positive case in the facility. The findings call into question widely made extrapolations from pre-pandemic research on how workforce practices may help predict pandemic spread. By evaluating multiple workforce practices in one model, the findings inform nursing home management decisions in the interest of resident health.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1527152023-11-03T03:05:07Z Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment Scott, K. MacKenzie Osterman, Paul Kelly, Erin L. Sloan School of Management One in three COVID-19 deaths in the United States occurred in a nursing home, raising questions about how nursing home facilities might improve organizational performance on resident health outcomes. Though researchers have linked workforce practices to organizational performance on patient health, it is less clear whether the predictors of organizational performance look different for pandemic infection, relative to other health conditions. To address this gap, this paper links workforce practices with both pre-pandemic resident health conditions and with COVID-19 outcomes. The analysis relies on multivariate and logistic regressions using two novel datasets that link multiple administrative sources before and during the pandemic. It evaluates how workforce practices such as pay, staff hours per resident, outsourcing, and overtime relate to resident health in both contexts. Whereas estimates show that workforce practices for Registered Nurses are the primary driver of resident health before the pandemic, outsourcing is more important to predicting COVID-19 infections and mortality. Specifically, outsourcing care work before the pandemic is associated with a one percentage point decrease in COVID-19 mortality during the crisis, conditional on at least one positive case in the facility. The findings call into question widely made extrapolations from pre-pandemic research on how workforce practices may help predict pandemic spread. By evaluating multiple workforce practices in one model, the findings inform nursing home management decisions in the interest of resident health. S.M. 2023-11-02T20:10:29Z 2023-11-02T20:10:29Z 2023-09 2023-08-25T19:54:11.721Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/152715 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7363-9356 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Scott, K. MacKenzie
Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title_full Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title_fullStr Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title_full_unstemmed Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title_short Workforce Practices & Organizational Performance in Nursing Homes: Implications for Resident Health and COVID-19 Containment
title_sort workforce practices organizational performance in nursing homes implications for resident health and covid 19 containment
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/152715
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7363-9356
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