Correlates of Administrator Tenure in US Residential Care Communities

To determine community- and individual-level correlates of administrator tenure in US residential care communities (RCCs).

Secondary data analysis of the 2010 National Survey of Residential Care Facilities designed by the National Center for Health Statistics. Analysis was conducted using Tobit regression.

A nationally representative sample of RCCs in the United States (n = 2302).

The outcome measure for this study is RCC administrator tenure. Residential care community characteristics include chain ownership, size, occupancy rate, profit status, years of operation, if the building was purposely constructed as an RCC, Medicaid census, presence of a dementia care unit, and whether administrative staff provided care. Administrator characteristics included age, gender, race/ethnicity, and level of education.

Over a quarter of administrators in this sample remained employed with the same RCC for 10 or more years (28%). Chain membership, community size, and presence of a dementia care unit are associated with shorter administrator tenure (P < .001). Communities with greater than 80% occupancy, administrator's age 40+, and Hispanic race/ethnicity were associated with longer administrator tenure (P < .001).

Various community and administrator characteristics are associated with shorter or longer tenure within the same community. More setting-specific research is needed to identify how RCC administrators influence care quality and what different lengths of tenure indicate in the context of RCC operations.