Rehabilitation hospitals hit hard by labor shortages: survey

Each year, Modern Healthcare's Post-Acute Care Survey asks companies that operate rehabilitation hospitals, long-term care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health services and hospice services about the state of the industry and what they predict for the future. Click here to see the list of participating companies, ranked by 2022 net patient revenue.

Here are five takeaways from the responses.

1. Labor costs continued to increase.

2. Staffing challenges hit rehabilitation hospitals particularly hard.

Although companies reported staffing issues across a variety of sectors, 63% said they had encountered shortages at rehabilitation facilities in 2022. (Respondents could select multiple types of services or facilities.)

3. Companies are getting creative about staffing.

Respondents reported a variety of strategies for tackling worker shortages, including voluntary overtime, using internal staffing agencies, wage increases, retention bonuses and leadership training.

4. Interest in artificial intelligence is growing.

Kris Roberts, chief operating officer at Jacksonville, Florida-based rehabilitation hospital Brooks Rehabilitation, said in a survey response that the company is interested in using AI to smooth administrative processes.

"In the future we will be assessing AI for help with clinical documentation versus traditional dictation … We'll also be testing artificial intelligence to assist with creating more efficiencies where it is feasible," she said.

5. Half of respondents say they aren't part of health information exchanges.

The exchanges are intended to more easily enable patient data sharing.