NLR veterans home finally full, stopping 2½ years of red ink
The state-run veterans home in North Little Rock has reached capacity roughly 2½ years after opening, officials announced Tuesday.
By filling all of its 96 beds, the Arkansas State Veterans Home at North Little Rock has eliminated its monthly deficit, which in April was about $120,000.
The facility this year ramped up admittance, accepting 20 new residents since mid-March, officials said. It had encountered a variety of hurdles to accepting more veterans in the more than two years since opening, ranging from staffing shortfalls to faulty construction.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson in a statement praised the “experience and innovation” that new home administrator David Barker has brought to the job. Barker was hired in March.
“From eliminating income tax on military retirement to establishing grants for Arkansas’s military installations, we are committed to supporting the heroes that serve our country,” the Republican governor said, referring to a retirement law and a grant program. “The North Little Rock Veterans Home provides our veterans first-class care and quality of life.”
The home, which opened at the outset of 2017, is the state’s first veterans home built from the ground up strictly for former military members. There’s also a staterun veterans home in Fayetteville.
The North Little Rock facility was built on the grounds of the former Emerald Park Golf Course, and it uses a small-home design, meant to make the facility more like a private home and less like a traditional long-term-care facility.
Eight “cottages” are scattered across campus, housing
12 residents each. Only about 1% of nursing homes in the United States use a small-home design, according to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
The special layout came with a learning curve, and the home has been cited by regulators on multiple occasions for serious quality of care violations. Those infractions have caused the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to assign the facility a one-star rating — the lowest offered by the federal agency.
Home officials said the poor rating represents a brief moment in time, and that one negative finding can sandbag the facility’s rating for three years.
From the start, the home, like many health care facilities in the region, have struggled to hire and retain nursing staff members. Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the Department of Finance and Administration, said the home’s staff vacancies have shrunk to one registered nurse and six licensed practical nurses.
“The Home proactively seeks qualified nurses through unique outreach,” Hardin said in an email. “For example, National Nurses Week was celebrated at the Home with a cook-out for all Nurses while accepting LPN applications.
Through this event, several LPNs were hired.”
Hardin also said that the home, which employs an onsite advanced-practice nurse, provides almost five hours of nursing care on average to residents each day, surpassing most other long-term-care facilities.
Robert Hall, a 67-year-old Army veteran, has lived at the home for a little more than a year. The Camden native said the home offers a nice contrast to “big nursing” homes with large floors. He said he spends most days playing bingo with other residents at the community center.
“I like it here,” Hall said. “The people are nice. They take good care of us.”
The home also will be the meeting site for a newly chartered American Legion post.
Now at capacity, state officials expect the home to begin turning a profit each month. Hardin said any profit would go to a fund that allows reinvestment into the facility.
Despite the home being full, interested veterans may still apply to be put on a waiting list.
Nate Todd, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs, noted that the veterans home has a $10 million impact on central Arkansas, employing more than 120 people.
“The veterans of Arkansas have a home-like concept facility that complements their service to our country,” Todd said in a statement. “On behalf of the veterans of Arkansas, we say, ‘Thank you’ to the Arkansas taxpayers for the initial investment; and ‘Thank you’ to the legislators and to Governor Hutchinson for their commitment to the veterans.”