Health care
BY GRACE DICKENS
BY SARAH HERNANDEZ
Baylor Scott & White launches Epilepsy Center in Lakeway
Texas nursing homes face continued sta ng shortages
Looking ahead
To be admitted to the center, individuals must be referred from an outpatient clinic. It takes around 10 years on average for doctors to determine whether an epilepsy patient will respond to medications or must be referred to a specialist, Montoya said. The new center aims to decrease that timeframe through education and improved access, Montoya said.
a grade of F and the lowest ranking out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. Looking ahead New rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aim to combat poor quality of care in nursing homes. It outlines minimum sta ng requirements that mostly impact registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses and certi ed nursing assistants by requiring additional hours of care a nursing home patient receives daily. “It’s a great concern for the nursing home environment because while you can mandate these requirements, there are just not enough nurses or clinicians out there to meet this requirement. It’s unrealistic,” Caballero said. The Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies recommends several plans for improving sta retention and recruitment in long-term care facilities, including pay increases, recruitment plan improvements and educational partnerships.
Nursing homes in Texas and across the U.S. face high sta turnover rates due to exhaustion, linger- ing e ects of the pandemic and sta ’s tendency to leave for other health care jobs, according to the American Health Care Association. The context In 2022, the median turnover rate for direct resi- dent care registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses in long-term care facilities was over 50%, an increase from previous years, according to the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies. Leticia Caballero, director of government rela- tions for HMG Healthcare, said a reason for the high turnover rates after the pandemic was exhaustion. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rates U.S. nursing homes based on their quality of care and sta ng. Families for Better Care, an Austin citizen advocacy group dedicated to creating public awareness of nursing home conditions, uses the ratings to compile state report cards. Texas received
Nursing home sta turnover Texas nursing homes have a higher sta turnover rate than the national average.
Doctors at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Lakeway opened a new center in mid- May to help tackle epilepsy, one of the most common problems in neurology. The new center is led by Dr. Victor Montoya and Dr. Diego Tovar, two fellowship-trained epileptologists. The center o ers four hardwired inpatient epilepsy monitoring unit beds alongside two mobile units. While mobile units are used to monitor seizures, doctors can use hardwired units to classify the type of seizure and develop customized care plans, Tovar and Montoya said. “Each patient’s epileptic condition is di erent, and therefore the treatment plan should be individualized,” Tovar said.
By the numbers
Total nursing sta turnover rate as of April 2024
1 in 26 people develop epilepsy at some point in life
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
National average
3 million Americans of all ages are a ected by epilepsy
Around 200,000 new cases of seizures and epilepsy recorded annually
“We have a lot of needs in terms of neurological care in our region.” DR. VICTOR MONTOYA, EPILEPSY CENTER CO LEADER
30% of epilepsy cases can’t be resolved by medication
About 1 million patients do not nd relief from seizures or experience side e ects
SOURCE: EPILEPSY FOUNDATION TEXAS COMMUNITY IMPACT
SOURCE: CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES COMMUNITY IMPACT
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