A Passionate Advocate Fights to Reinvent Nursing Homes

For the past several years, nursing homes have come under intense public scrutiny, as more than 200,000 long-term care residents and staff have died due to the COVID pandemic. Healthcare officials, advocates, policy makers and watchdog groups have called for a list of fixes to the industry, such as increased staffing levels, higher pay for nursing home workers, and changes in protocols and safety procedures. But some advocates have been fighting for much bigger changes—a dramatic transformation of the way we deliver long-term residential care. In today’s episode, we talk with Anne Montgomery, a noted policy consultant who has worked for improved access to affordable long-term care services. For more than two decades, Anne has worked on many initiatives as an analyst and policy advisor for government entities and nonprofit organizations, including the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, the Alliance for Health Reform, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Altarum Institute. She has wide-ranging experience in developing and evaluating research initiatives, and in designing intersectional projects focused on aging, community issues and long-term care, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and family caregiver supports. Anne is currently working on a ground-breaking national demonstration project to reinvent nursing homes, a proposal known as The EINSTEIN Option (Evaluating Innovation in Nursing Home Systems to End Institutionalization). It’s a disciplined, three-year approach to transforming the long-term care residential sector, from redesigning institutional-style nursing homes as smaller homes or cottages, to rethinking how services are delivered in a continuum of care model. And Anne continues to speak out about aging and ageism issues issues—what they mean for economies and social cohesion around the world.