The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of senior housing, skilled nursing, home health and hospice care. To see this year’s future leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Kevin McInerney, chief personnel officer and government affairs at Legacy Healthcare, has been named a 2021 Future Leader by Skilled Nursing News.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40 years old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action and an advocate for seniors and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.
McInerney sat down with Skilled Nursing News to talk about his start in the industry and lessons learned to take beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
What brought you to the skilled nursing industry?
I majored in film and photography, I had no health care background whatsoever. I was working part time as an activity aide and got my foot in the door and just worked my way up from there. I moved into guest services, I did admissions, and then into administration.
What is the biggest lesson you learned since you started working in the industry?
That there are really good people that are doing this work that’s incredibly difficult, and are incredibly committed, and skilled nursing, nursing homes are an essential function of health care.
I’m not sure that I would have known that before I walked in, I mean it seems to go way back. If you’d have said you’d be working in skilled care or health care, I would have thought you were crazy. The idea is that you have the ability to influence somebody’s life and help them either get better or feel better, and that’s a pretty remarkable opportunity. Honestly that’s truthfully probably the reason why I love this industry, and I’m so just appreciative of the people that I work with because the work they do on an ongoing basis is awesome and remarkable.
If you could change one thing looking towards the future of skilled nursing, what would it be?
So many things I would change. I would open up immigration for more nurses, I would increase Medicaid reimbursement, I would relax the regulatory environment. Truthfully if there’s one thing it would be the perception of health care and the perception of long-term care moving forward because we’re fighting an uphill battle in terms of that public perception. I think we see that with media, I think we see that with the departments of public health that we deal with, sometimes with CMS — certainly the public perception isn’t overwhelmingly positive. I’d love for people to have an understanding of what happens in these facilities on a daily basis. Instead of focusing on the one or two negative stories that come out, realizing that on an ongoing basis there’s remarkable care and remarkable work that’s being done daily, hourly, minute by minute, across the country.
What do you foresee as being different about the skilled nursing industry looking ahead to next year?
Well Covid has changed quite a few things. I think there’s going to be, not that there wasn’t already, but a pretty renewed focus on mitigating cohabitation meaning that there’s going to be an even greater focus on private rooms. There’s going to be a lot of capital improvements that have to occur in these facilities, structurally things are going to have to change.
Maybe not the most positive outlook, but I think we’re also going to see sort of a slow recovery as people come around to the idea that nursing homes are safe and are providing a valued service. We’ve got to deal with this question of burnout because I think everybody’s extremely tired, and so finding some relief for people that have been working really constantly is going to be the key to surviving. I don’t know exactly how that’s going to work or what that’s going to look like but I think ultimately that will have to happen in order for us to move forward.
What are the concerns you have about the future of the industry?
Again a little bit about that consumer confidence and people’s trust in nursing homes. I think when you see the litany of media out there there’s a tendency to assume that all nursing homes or all health care is like this, when in reality they sort of cherry pick stories. In many ways being in a nursing home was arguably one of the safest places to be during the pandemic.
I have real concerns about the influx of people choosing health care as an occupation, the number of nurses and the number of CNAs that we have for the census and the needs that are coming on. It’s no secret that we’re at a deficit and so finding people who are invested, courageous enough to do this kind of work I think it’s going to be critically important, and incentivizing people to come into the industry. However we can find that workforce, that to me is the biggest concern moving forward.
To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Companies featured in this article:
