​A first-of-its-kind survey by the federal government of assisted living/residential care facilities and residents provides a large new source of data on the profession, including important trends like the growing role of the Medicaid program in the field, experts said recently.

The survey is titled, “2010 National Survey of Residential Care Facilities,” and was conducted by researchers at the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The work represents the largest study of the assisted living profession ever done by the federal government.

The study found that 19 percent of residents received Medicaid funding, and 43 percent of facilities had at least one resident receiving Medicaid assistance.  Other key findings include that in 2010, residential care facilities (RCFs) totaled 31,100, with 971,900 beds nationwide. Those facilities exclusively serving adults with severe mental illness or those with developmental disabilities were excluded from the survey.

About one-half of RCFs were small facilities with four to 10 beds, with the remainder comprised of medium facilities with 11 to 25 beds (16 percent), large facilities with 26 to 100 beds (28 percent), and extra-large facilities with more than 100 beds (7 percent).

One-tenth of all RCF residents lived in small RCFs and about that percentage (9 percent) lived in medium facilities, while the majority resided in large (52 percent) or extra-large (29 percent) RCFs.

The purpose of the study, according to report authors, was to fill a significant gap in coverage of the range of long term care provider-based data collection. The survey collected data on residential care providers, their staffs and services, and their current residents. Interviews were completed with 2,302 facilities, and data were collected on 8,094 sampled residents.  Residents, themselves, were not interviewed for the study.

Other results discovered that RCFs were most commonly located in the West (42 percent of all RCFs) and least commonly housed in the Northeast (8 percent).  In the West, there were 245 beds per 1,000 persons aged 85 and over, compared with 131 beds in the Northeast, 164 beds in the South, and 177 beds in the Midwest.

Thirty-seven percent of residents were receiving assistance with three or more activities of daily living. The study also found the following prevalence of common chronic conditions among residents (with half having at least three chronic conditions): high blood pressure - 57 percent; Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias - 42 percent; heart disease - 34 percent; depression - 28 percent; arthritis - 27 percent; osteoporosis - 21 percent; and diabetes - 17 percent.

There also was evidence the RCFs were providing higher levels of health care services. Thirty-nine percent of facilities provided skilled nursing services by registered nurses or licensed practical nurses, and 13 percent of residents received these services. The provision of skilled nursing services did not vary by facility size, while the provision of occupational and physical therapy increased with the size of facility.

More information is at www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db78.htm. 

NCHS researchers also released facility and resident public-use data files and said a data brief describing resident characteristics would be issued in March 2012.