Statistics abound detailing the shortage of nurses in skilled nursing homes. But you probably don’t need to read the data. You’re likely living the staffing crunch firsthand. Instead of having to do more with less, you want to focus on offering consistent, quality care. Artificial intelligence in long-term care can help.

We’ll just offer one recent industry survey to make sure we’re all on the same page about “rampant staffing shortages across the nursing home and assisted living industries.” Among 1,183 long-term care providers polled by the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL):

• 99% of nursing homes said they are facing some degree of staffing shortages
• 59% percent of nursing homes characterized their staffing situation as “severe”
• And things aren’t improving. “Since June, 86% of nursing homes said their workforce situation has somewhat or greatly worsened”

This is a big operational burden. Many facilities are having to reduce new admissions and rely on overtime shifts and pricey agency hires. Meanwhile, staffing shortages in long-term care facilities pose many risks. Overworked employees cannot provide quality care. Excessively stressed staff quits. That turnover only exacerbates the staffing issues.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) in long term care setting gives your staff access to an extra brain. And a powerful one at that. While your staff is focusing on patient interactions, the technology ingests and analyzes millions of data points and does predictive modeling to identify the most at risk patients so staff can intervene sooner to avoid rapid patient decline.

AI Powers In-place Interventions

In a short-staffed nursing home, the clinical team struggles to manually keep up with patients’ Electronic Health Records (EHR) and subtle clinical changes. Physicians rely only on nurses to share their observations, but this is one more thing on a long to do list.

With an artificial intelligence solution analyzing the EHR data for subtle changes in condition that can quickly lead to a serious decline in patient condition, clinical staff can begin each shift with a proactive report providing data about clinical risks.

The AI-powered solution also prioritizes treatments and identifies which tests or treatments a patient with a long-term health condition needs or might benefit from most. Putting this real-time data at the clinician’s fingertips facilitates early detection, quick treatment and healing in place while preventing misdiagnoses. At the same time, aggregating patient data to reduce hospital bounce backs minimizes stress not only for the patient, but also their family, which benefits the care staff too.

Delivering data-driven predictions and recommendations directly to the clinical team ultimately avoids the hospital readmits that can result in payment reductions and penalties as well as fewer referrals over time.

It helps too that the AI technology is always learning to further improve its predictions to prompt proactive, early interventions. At Trio Healthcare, Chief Clinical Officer Melissa Green, the technology not only “boosted productivity” but also gave the “clinical team more confidence—and elevated competencies.”

Improving Outcomes with SAIVA AI

Leveraging AI in long-term care to offset staffing shortages and augment the efforts of clinical teams supports consistent and constructive care and allows for better outcomes.

Empowering clinical teams in this way helps staff feel more engaged, improves work satisfaction, and reduces stress levels. Along with seeing positive results of their efforts in real time, skilled nursing home staff are able to streamline their assessment and clinical efforts. Plus, leadership can use rehospitalization performance trend data to:

• Set internal goals
• Identify training needs
• Improve regulatory compliance
• Tailor care to optimize patient discharge to home

Give nurses and other skilled nursing home staff the tools they need to truly enact patient-centered care. With 24/7/365 AI support from SAIVA AI clinical analysis and prioritization, paired with the human staffer’s experience, education, and intuition, everyone benefits.

With SAIVA AI’s support, skilled nursing home staff can better leverage their time to treat patients more efficiently and effectively. It’s not just doing more with less. Artificial intelligence in long-term care enables doing the best thing and making data-driven clinical decisions with less effort.

Learn more about the future of AI in healthcare and how essential it is to bring together the strengths of humans and computers to create better outcomes. Schedule your demo today!