Changing Perceptions of a Poorly Understood Long-Term Care Industry

At my campus, I recently took part in a group interview for a position that will oversee a number of educational initiatives in one of our college’s other departments. During the interview, my colleagues and I shared our challenges regarding student recruitment, marketing, and program identification.

I shared how my particular department in aging and long-term care is often marketed using a typical strategy: maximizing search engine words to identify potential students interested in graduate studies in aging or nursing home administration. This approach, as you may have already guessed, does not work in the long-term care industry.
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Unless there is an internal drive for a person to go beyond the requirements of licensure or the job requirements imposed by the individual’s current position, there may not be much incentive for him or her to seek a graduate degree. When I shared the failure of this marketing campaign to identify potential students, the candidate acknowledged that my department did indeed have a difficult hill to climb, but not for the reasons I had expected to hear.

“This is a tough industry,” the candidate said. “It’s very hard work, and we know that all nursing homes smell. It’s not something that most people would ever want to do, unless they can’t get a job in a hospital.”

Those remarks were so shocking, so stupefying, that I was unable to counter with any cogent argument. In fact, I said nothing, and the conversation moved to my colleagues. What I should have asked was, “when was the last time (or first time, or any time) that you actually visited a nursing home?”

This encounter was a firm reminder of the way people perceive the long-term care industry—thou preconceived notions, media portrayals, second-hand information, or other less informed notions of what actually happens in nursing homes.

If this candidate is offered the position, I will have to take him to a facility or two in order to dispel theses erroneous ideas. But what do we do with the millions like him in the community who continue to poorly understand what the staff in long-term care provide day after day? How do we change the perceptions of our industry on a larger scale? It is obvious that much work still needs to be done.

Ilene Warner-Maron, PhD, RN-BC, CWCN, CALA, NHA, FCPP, has been practicing nursing for 33 years, specializing in the care of geriatric patients. She is an Assistant Professor at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in the department of Interdisciplinary Health Services. Dr. Warner-Maron is the president of the Institute for Continuing Education and Research, providing educational programs for individuals seeking licensure in nursing home administration.