Eli's Hospice Insider

The need for home care aides is rising, but drawbacks to the job may make recruiting increasingly difficult.

The Centers for Disease Control surveyed a sample of the 160,700 home care and hospice aides in 2007. Their average hourly pay rate was $10.88 and almost 19 percent of aides had no insurance. More than one in 10 had at least one work-related injury in the previous year, says a new report on the survey from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

"Retention of direct care workers is a major challenge," the report says. "A low pay structure, lack of or limited fringe benefits, a heavy workload, poor working conditions, lack of appropriate training, little opportunity for professional advancement, and a lack of respect from management are some of the reasons cited for high turnover and vacancy rates."

Among the statistics included in the report are the percentage of aides who would prefer to work more hours (26 percent); who received a pay raise in the last year (57 percent); and who had or were currently receiving government benefits such as food stamps (52 percent).

One factor may give hospices a leg up in recruiting aides. Hospice-only aides were much more likely than HHA aides to be offered health insurance from their employers -- 94 versus 66 percent.

The report is at www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr034.pdf.