Scripps study reports state nursing home bed surplus to remain in 2015

Ohio will have about 5,215 more nursing home beds than the 88,000 or so it will likely need in the year 2015, according to a report released by the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University.

The report, “A Review of Ohio’s Nursing Home Certificate of Need Program: Implications for Practice and Policy,” is based on a study authored by Shahla Mehdizadeh, Takashi Yamashita and Bob Applebaum of Scripps for the Ohio Department of Health.

The study examined Ohio’s Certificate of Need (CON) law, revised in 2009. The study focused on its new policy of allowing the transfer of nursing home beds from counties with an oversupply to counties with an under-supply. The oversupply projections are based on a formula allowing for the transfer of beds based on the number of current nursing home beds in each county, a presumed 90 percent occupancy rate of those beds and the county population age 65 and older. Ohio now has about 93,003 nursing home beds occupied by roughly 83,700 residents.

A detailed analysis of nursing homes and occupancy rates in Ohio’s 88 counties indicates 12 counties, including Franklin, Summit and Trumbull, could be short of beds while 26 counties, including Cuyahoga and Hamilton, will have an oversupply by 2015. The oversupply comes despite growth in the number of older Ohioans, partly due to the increase in assisted living facilities and the in-home services now available.

The report states, “The (CON) formula for calculating bed supply may need to be modified as a result of long-term care system change.”

Since some counties have clusters of nursing homes bordering on county lines (and are thus able to readily serve residents from adjoining counties), the report notes that “county boundaries may not be the appropriate geographic unit for determining the availability of nursing home beds.”

The report further observes that the formula does not address the overall abundance of beds in Ohio.

Regarding policy implications, the report emphasizes, “The way nursing homes are now being used is drastically different than even 10 years ago. Therefore, assumptions about needed bed supply should be re-examined in the light of changing trends. A further review of bed-need estimates should be undertaken before 2015.”

The full report is available online. The Oho Board of Regents named Miami’s Scripps Gerontology Center as an Ohio Center of Excellence in January 2011.