Choosing a Career as a Senior Care Executive

Thinking about choosing a career as a senior care executive, but you're not sure if you’re cut out for it? Ephraim Zagelbaum, founder and CEO of senior care management company Personal Healthcare, can help you learn about the work environment, daily responsibilities, skill requirements, and certifications needed for a nursing home executive. Ephraim Zagelbaum has over 10 years of senior care operations and management experience, having owned and operated more than 10 sites with about 1,300 beds. As the company's CEO, Mr. Zagelbaum oversees every aspect of Personal Healthcare’s operations from sales and marketing to employee and client care to ensure that all locations achieve operational excellence. Under his leadership for more than a decade, Personal Healthcare has grown from startup to industry champion and today employs thousands of team members across 10+ nursing homes.

The good news is, the demand for talented nursing home executive directors is increasing. Apparently, there were around 1.4 million nursing home residents in the U.S. in 2014, but the number of elderly Americans is expected to double by 2050. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the need for healthcare managers is projected to grow three times faster than the average for all occupations in the next five years.

Key responsibilities for a nursing home chief executive officer include day-to-day operations providing outstanding quality and service to residents, managing a highly-engaged workforce, financial performance and management, customer relationship management, community development and regulatory compliance.

The position calls for both sympathetic people skills as well as assertive management techniques. Nursing home executive directors deal with end-of-life care, family grief, and severe disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. This means that compassion fatigue and burnout can be common side effects of the position. The best nursing home executive directors know that the work is both physical and mental and they are capable of navigating that dichotomy not only within themselves but also with their staff, patients, and families.

Nursing home executive directors typically work out of an office, but most of their job centers around people. Face to face communication is critical to developing trust and shared goals. Since nursing homes are often smaller than hospitals, an executive director can take a hands-on approach to leadership by building stronger relationships with the staff and patients. The work environment stretches outside of a medical facility’s walls, too—sometimes requiring interaction with donors, government institutions, professional organizations, and the wider public.

The downside to all that movement and interaction is that this is a job that does not have off-hours. Nursing home facilities run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and residents need safe and effective care at all times. Many other healthcare sectors require directors to be on-call, and nursing home administration is no different.