Over the last year, it has become evident to any consumer that supply chain and staffing issues are real problems facing nearly all industries. The senior housing field is no different. As recently reported by Senior Housing News, senior housing operators are attempting to mitigate the problems they are facing on both fronts with new and creative ideas.

New staffing models, including allowing workers to commute to communities in more rural markets (as hospitals are doing with nurse shortages) are becoming more common place. The expense of relying on third party providers for staffing shortages is still a crunch on the expense side of the ledger, however, which will cause fees and costs in facilities to increase.

Supply chain disruption has proved to be a real problem for the provision of food (and other supplies) to senior living facilities. Efforts to leverage scale is a primary goal of many operators, including the joining of group purchasing organizations (GPO) to try to alleviate some of the pricing concerns.

Operators will continue to try and control the expense side in an effort to avoid increasing rates to residents in the current and future years, but the struggle with supply chain and staffing is likely to continue for some time.

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