Public invited to open town hall meeting on August 2nd to learn more
Representatives of Heartland Care Center, a non-profit organization that manages a nursing home and assisted living facility in Marcus, Iowa, have announced that they recently signed a letter of intent to affiliate with Cherokee Regional Medical Center (Cherokee Regional), a non-profit health care organization providing services in Cherokee County and surrounding area.
After months of discussions, the Heartland Care Center board of directors and administration have determined that joining a larger organization, such as Cherokee Regional, is in the best interests of the Heartland Care Center, especially when considering the challenges the nursing home industry has faced since start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Labor shortages and rising costs have resonated throughout the healthcare sector in the United States, severely impacting the nursing home industry.
To address staffing shortages, many nursing homes have needed to utilize traveling nurses and aids at a cost well above normal levels, while payments from Medicaid and Medicare have not increased enough to offset rising expenses. As a result, Iowa saw eleven nursing homes close in 2022, and six Iowa nursing home have already closed in 2023. In an effort to remain a viable provider of long term care services for years to come, Heartland Care Center reached out to multiple organizations to determine who would make a great partner while maintaining a local focus on service to the Marcus community.
Cherokee Regional officials stated that they look forward to having Heartland Care Center join its family of diverse health care services. Through the affiliation, Cherokee Regional will be able to provide improved purchasing power for supplies, as well as management expertise in areas such as accounting, billing, and human resources. These are resources that small organizations such as Heartland cannot always easily obtain.
In addition, Cherokee Regional leadership expressed one of the major factors in deciding to bring Heartland into its umbrella of services is to address the projected need for increased nursing home beds in the future. The affiliation will help ensure the hospital has access to beds to place patients after hospital stays when they need further care in a setting such as Heartland Care Center.
The need for long term care makes maintaining organizations such as Heartland Care Center vital to the health and wellbeing of residents in our communities. Many communities that are losing nursing homes are experiencing challenges for families that need a place for a family member to stay that is convenient for them to visit, and care for, that family member.
Heartland Care Center and Cherokee Regional would like to invite all interested community members to an open town hall meeting at the Marcus Community Center to learn more about the affiliation, and participate in a question-and-answer session on Wednesday, August 2, 2023 at 6:30 p.m.