Blog

By Geralyn Magan

A timely research project will provide important insights into how a pandemic affects frontline workers and consumers of long-term services and supports (LTSS).

The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston and WeCare Connect^TM are studying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workforce that provides long-term services and supports (LTSS) and the recipients of those services and supports.

WeCare Connect is an employee and resident engagement and management system designed by Wellspring Lutheran Services, a LeadingAge member in Flint, MI. The WeCare Connect service helps 155 aging services organizations in more than 1,000 locations better understand staff challenges and assess satisfaction with care among consumers of aging services.

“Aging services providers are currently facing an unprecedented crisis due to the rapid spread of COVID-19,” says Verena Cimarolli, senior health services research associate at the LTSS Center, which is leading the study. “Studies are needed now to understand the impact and challenges that COVID-19 poses to providing quality care during these trying times, especially training staff to care for at-risk residents, and helping staff protect themselves, their families, and those they care for.”

During the ongoing project, researchers will seek to ascertain:

• The challenges workers are experiencing and how workers perceive the quality of employer preparedness and communication around COVID-19.
• How COVID-related stresses—and the quality of employer preparedness and communication—impacts worker well-being, job satisfaction, and retention.
• How COVID-19 impacts quality of life and health care-related outcomes of LTSS consumers.
• How characteristics of the direct care workforce, including job satisfaction, either alleviate or exacerbate the impact of COVID-19 on LTSS consumer outcomes.

DATA COLLECTION

WeCare Connect uses phone, email, or mobile applications to collect ongoing feedback from an LTSS organization’s new and established employees and consumers. Managers in aging services organizations use this information to develop real-time solutions that help reduce turnover, improve retention, and enhance consumer services.

As part of its collaboration with the LTSS Center, WeCare Connect added COVID-related questions to its regular employee surveys for the month of May 2020. The LTSS Center will analyze responses to those questions and merge these data with setting-level data on the well-being of consumers.

EMPLOYEE QUESTIONS

WeCare Connect will ask employees to rate their answers to the following questions on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most positive response:

1. How would you rate your organization’s communication with you regarding how to care for residents/patients/clients and protect them during the COVID-19 pandemic?

2. How would you rate your organization’s communication with you regarding how to protect yourself and your family during the COVID-19 pandemic?

3. Overall, how prepared are you to care for a resident/patient/client with known or suspected COVID-19?

4. Overall, how stressed do you feel as an employee during this COVID-19 pandemic?

5. Due to COVID-19, which of the following outside challenges are you facing?
   1. Lack of childcare.
   2. Lack of transportation.
   3. Separation from family members.
   4. Managing the personal needs and demands of family.
   5. Experiencing financial hardship.

6. Due to COVID-19, which of the following challenges cause you stress when caring for residents/patients/clients at your organization?
   1. Lack of personal protective equipment.
   2. Lack of protocols/guidance from organization to care for residents.
   3. Increased workload demands.
   4. Increased risk of transmission to/from residents.
   5. Understaffing

A UNIQUE AND TIMELY STUDY

Cimarolli described the COVID-19 study as “unique and timely.”

“The results of our study will provide important insights into how a pandemic affects frontline workers and LTSS consumers,” she says. “This information will help aging services providers understand and address employee-related challenges faced during this unprecedented crisis.”