Home Care Market Research Articles

Navigating the 24-Hour Home Care Market: Infrastructure as the Key to Social Care in Japan

Background: Long-term care insurance in Japan is a public insurance program. However, all home care service designs are based on the business market. The purpose of the present research is to examine the difficulties of 24-hour home care offered by private care providers, to clarify family styles and family care, and to consider how to build a 24-hour home care platform with private care companies, taking cues from Denmark.

Market characteristics and entry strategy decision making: The market perspective of Croatian elderly care homes

Background: Socio-demographic changes increase the need for long-term elderly care. Consequently, providing formal institutional service in elderly care homes is an interesting opportunity for entrepreneurs. However, the entry strategy decision is influenced by numerous external variables. Purpose: The main goal is to answer what determines market concentration as one of the most important market entry determinants. Study design/methodology/approach: A linear regression model has been formed and tested on the Croatian elderly care home market, observed on a county level, using data for 2021. Further, a cluster analysis, as a decision-support tool, has been made to assess market characteristics that are more likely to attract new entrants to the elderly care home market. Findings/conclusions: Results indicate that demand for long-term care services plays a significant role, and the market with more elderly will attract more competitors. When the level of GDP per capita and the unemployment rate are observed together, markets with stronger economies tend to attract entrepreneurs. In other words, it is more likely that someone will open an elderly care home in a densely populated county with individuals that can afford formal institutional long-term care for themselves or family members. Limitations/future research: The shortcomings are mainly related to the lack of data on prices and quality measures. Further, information on the number of beds in each elderly care home would enable an alternative calculation of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, while data on service prices and structure of employees as a proxy for quality (medical and non-medical staff) would enable a more reliable comparative analysis of obtained results. Future studies on this subject include variables related to the portion of unemployed females in the market since female family members more often provide informal care, and at the same time, they are more likely to be employed in formal long-term care institutions.

Home care market - Moving Company

Our moving company is located in Shanghai, China. We provide one-to-one high-end services for people with high income population. The company cooperates with high-end customers' residential communities, and their sales will recommend our company to the owners. When the owners need one-to-one moving services, they choose us. Meanwhile, we will also let the public know about our high-end services through website or social network. Our customer's demand is high efficiency with tidiness work team, also the work time we provided will be shorter than other competitors. It will bring customer a very comfortable environment and the contact is very convenient.

Market concentration, supply, quality and prices paid by local authorities in the English care home market.

We investigate the impact of exogenous local conditions which favor high market concentration on supply, price and quality in local markets for care homes for older people in England. We extend the existing literature in: (i) considering supply capacity as a market outcome alongside price and quality; (ii) taking account of the chain structure of care home supply and differences between the nursing home and residential care home sectors; (iii) using an econometric approach based on reduced form relationships that treats market concentration as a jointly determined outcome of a complex market. We find that areas susceptible to a high degree of market concentration tend to have greatly restricted supply of care home places and (to a lesser extent) a higher average public cost, than areas susceptible to low degree of market concentration. There is no significant evidence that conditions favoring high market concentration affect average care home quality.

Selling a Resume and Buying a Job: Stratification of Gender and Occupation by States and Brokers in International Migration from Indonesia

AbstractThis study examines how state and commercial actors construct gender, occupation, and nationality hierarchies in guest worker programs by comparing the migratory procedures for female domestic workers and male industrial operators from Indonesia. Based on 19 months of multi-sited ethnography and 86 interviews in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Singapore, I introduce the notion of multilateralism to theorize the stratification of global migration processes. In multilateral labor markets, governments, brokers, employers, and migrants in multiple countries contend for labor and employment. The homecare market is governed under the rubric of “selling a resume,” whereby Indonesian regulators and labor suppliers pass on recruitment costs to employers, in a context where migrant domestics possess myriad destination options due to their reputation fostered by a government-organized credentialing program. By contrast, Indonesian factory workers expend upfront payment to “buy a job” from destination brokers amid rivalry with migrants of other nationalities. The Indonesian state’s inattention to elevating industrial migrants’ standing through skill formation has compelled private recruiters to vie for jobs by extracting brokerage fees and developing a patchwork of selection mechanisms. This article finds that social actors’ capacity to negotiate the terms of labor exchange is contingent on their structural locations within a global hierarchy of competing nation-states.

What kind of home is your care home? A typology of personalised care provided in residential and nursing homes

AbstractThis paper examines how care home managers in England conceptualised the approach to delivering personalised care in the homes they managed. We conducted interviews with care home managers and mapped the approaches they described on two distinct characterisations of personalised care prominent in the research and practitioner literature: the importance of close care relationships and the degree of resident choice and decision-making promoted by the care home. We derived three ‘types’ of personalised care in care homes. These conceptualise the care home as an ‘institution’, a ‘family’ and a ‘hotel’. We have added a fourth type, the ‘co-operative’, to propose a type that merges proximate care relationships with an emphasis on resident choice and decision-making. We conclude that each approach involves trade-offs and that the ‘family’ model may be more suitable for people with advanced dementia, given its emphasis on relationships. While the presence of a range of diverse approaches to personalising care in a care home market may be desirable as a matter of choice, access to care homes in England is likely to be constrained by availability and cost.

Exploring the Results of the Ontario Home Care Minimum Wage Change.

:In 2014, Ontario increased its "minimum wage" for personal support workers (PSWs) in publicly funded home care. The objective of this article is to determine the short-term results of this policy for home care PSWs' wages, hours and job stability. This study uses descriptive graphs and ordinary least squares and unconditional quantile regressions, using PSWs across Canada as comparison groups. Pre-policynominal wages for Ontario home care PSWs stagnated, whereas real wages declined. The policyincreased home care PSWs' wages without noticeably affecting hours or job stability. However, wages were already increasing for low-wage home care workers in the rest of Canada. Ontario exercises monopsony power in the home care market and, before the wage increase, kept nominal wages stable compared to rising real and nominal wages in the rest of Canada. This PSW-specific wage increase did not represent a drastic change relative to market conditions.

Exploring differences between private and public prices in the English care homes market.

This work quantitatively assesses the potential reasons behind the difference in prices paid by care home residents in England. Evidence suggests that the price paid by private payers is higher than that paid for publicly supported residents, and this is often attributed to the market power wielded by local authorities as the dominant purchaser in local markets. Estimations of private prices at the local authority level are used to assess the difference in price paid between private and public prices, the fees gap, using data from 2008 to 2010. Controlling for local area and average care home characteristics, the results indicate that both care home and local authority market power play a role in the price determination of the market.

Measuring Quality in Home Healthcare.

Improving quality performance in home health is an increasingly high priority. The objective of this study was to examine trends in industry performance over time using three quality measures: a composite quality metric (Q index), an infection prevention measure (vaccination verification), and an outcome measure (hospital avoidance). We linked Home Health Compare and Provider of Services data from 2012 to 2016, which included 39 211 observations during the 5-year study period and 7670 agencies in 2016. The Q index was developed to allow comparability over time, equally weighting the contributions of each element. After examining summary statistics, we developed three regression models stratified by ownership (for-profit/nonprofit agency) and included two constructs of nurse staffing, in addition to controlling for known confounders. Most agencies (80.4%) were for-profit agencies. The Q index and vaccination verification improved substantially over time, but there was no change in hospital avoidance. Ownership status was associated with all three measures (P < .001). Registered nurse staffing (relative to licensed practical nurses and home health aides) was associated with higher Q index and vaccination verification (P < .001). The Q index allows for assessment of trends over time in home healthcare. Ownership and nurse staffing are important factors in the quality of care. The overall home care market is driven by for-profit agencies, but their characteristics and outcomes differ from nonprofit agencies. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:1859-1865, 2019.

Goverment follows Market Authority's recommendations

The Competition and Markets Authority's report on the care home market highlighted major issues with funding and customer proctection. Helena Frankova discusses the Government's response and evaluates whether planned measures will be sufficient

Issues with the financial model of care homes

The current financial model of the care home market is not sustainable, argues Helena Frankova. She addresses the problems faced by the sector and how both government and care home operators can do more to fill the funding gap

Greater regulation of care homes likely following CMA report

A report from the Competition and Markets Authority on the state of the care home market has come down on the side of residents. Care homes are likely to face greater regulation, says competition lawyer Stephen Tupper

Urgent action needs to be taken

Nursing and Residential CareVol. 20, No. 1 EditorialUrgent action needs to be takenNicholas BunceNicholas BunceSearch for more papers by this authorNicholas BuncePublished Online:11 Jan 2018https://doi.org/10.12968/nrec.2018.20.1.5AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Competition and Markets Authority. Urgent action needed across the UK care home market. 2017. http://bit.ly/2AMfzGq (accessed 30 November 2017) Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 January 2018Volume 20Issue 1ISSN (print): 1465-9301ISSN (online): 2052-2932 Metrics History Published online 11 January 2018 Published in print 2 January 2018 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

The 2017 Environmental Scan

The 2017 Environmental Scan

Methodology for the management of outsourced outpatient services within the NHS pharmacy service

ObjectivesThe successful management of outsourced services is a skill which is increasingly required in the UK National Health Service (NHS). However, it is not something that is widely taught and...

Self-managed care teams to improve community care for frail older adults in the Netherlands

Strong collaboration among primary care physician, pharmacist, and a community nurse can provide close monitoring of the conditions of frail older adults in their home environment. Reforms in long-term care in the Netherlands provide incentives to improve this collaboration. The reforms are in line with the innovation in the home-care market. Buurtzorg uses small, self-managed, highly qualified teams for home care since 2006. With neighborhood-focused teams and a limited number of nurses who care for a patient, communication with other caregivers is easier. Moreover, the way to transform an organization to work with self-managed teams is discussed.

Poor pay and conditions threaten homecare market.

Poor pay and conditions threaten homecare market.

Policies to protect persons with dementia in assisted living: déjà vu all over again?

Continued growth in the number of individuals with dementia residing in assisted living (AL) raises concerns about their safety and protection. In this Forum, we review current AL practices relevant to residents with dementia and present a rationale for examining the government role in protecting these individuals within this context. Since public oversight of AL is currently a state prerogative, we assess states' regulatory activity across 3 domains closely related to safety and protection of persons with dementia: environmental features, staffing, and use of chemical restraints. We then step back to consider the state policymaking environment and assess the feasibility of developing a minimum standard of regulations from one state to the next. This Forum concludes with a historical comparison between the contemporary AL market and the nursing home care market prior to the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, and we discuss how an increased amount of federal interest could improve existing state efforts to protect persons with dementia residing in AL.

Buyer Power and Price Discrimination: The Case of the UK Care Home Market

UK Local Authorities purchase care home places on behalf of a large group of people following an assessment of their ability to meet the care home fee from their income and wealth. All other buyers of care home services are atomistic and the care home market is characterised by a large number of relatively small providers. This may give local authorities buyer power. We show the consequences of substantial buyer power by one consumer when sellers are competitive but each faces capacity constraints. In the free entry equilibrium we show that any abuse of this buyer power may lead to part of the market, “the squeezed middle” not being served. We use a microsimulation model to quantify the size of the squeezed middle and assess the implications of the form of the assessment of people’s ability to meet care home fees, for local authorities’ ability to exercise buyer power

The implications of personal budgets for the home care market

This article uses an analytic framework based on the preconditions for effective markets to consider how the widespread introduction of personal budgets is likely to affect the market for social care. While there are some promising signs of changes that should result in a more responsive market, there are some structural features that may act as barriers. The roles of local authorities as facilitators will be essential. The research findings reported here have relevance for other countries that have introduced personal budgets or ‘cash for care’ schemes.