Health Policy Research Seminar: LJ Ristovska, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
10:00am - 11:00am • 1104 Blockley Hall (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
2026-01-08 10:00:00 2026-01-08 11:00:00 America/New_York Health Policy Research Seminar: LJ Ristovska, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin Co-sponsored by the Opportunity of Health Lab Topic: "The Effects of Nursing Home Staffing on the Quality of Nursing Home Care: Evidence from Employee Absences." About the Talk: Nursing homes provide critical long-term and post-acute care to older adults, yet persistently low care quality remains a pressing policy issue. This talk examines how staffing levels and skill mix affect patient outcomes, using daily employee-level staffing data and day-to-day staffing shocks caused by employee absences. The findings show that increases in staffing—particularly among CNAs and LPNs, as well as more experienced nursing staff—lead to substantial reductions in hospitalizations, mortality, and inpatient spending. About the Speaker: Ljubica Ristovska is an Assistant Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2023. Prior to joining LBJ, she was a postdoctoral associate at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at the Economics Department at Yale University. Her research focuses on health economics, particularly understanding and improving allocation of treatments in health care, as well as the organization and productivity of health care teams. She also has ongoing work examining socio-economic determinants of health and medical spending. 1104 Blockley Hall (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.) Penn Medical EthicsCo-sponsored by the Opportunity of Health Lab
Topic: "The Effects of Nursing Home Staffing on the Quality of Nursing Home Care: Evidence from Employee Absences."
About the Talk: Nursing homes provide critical long-term and post-acute care to older adults, yet persistently low care quality remains a pressing policy issue. This talk examines how staffing levels and skill mix affect patient outcomes, using daily employee-level staffing data and day-to-day staffing shocks caused by employee absences. The findings show that increases in staffing—particularly among CNAs and LPNs, as well as more experienced nursing staff—lead to substantial reductions in hospitalizations, mortality, and inpatient spending.
About the Speaker: Ljubica Ristovska is an Assistant Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2023. Prior to joining LBJ, she was a postdoctoral associate at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at the Economics Department at Yale University. Her research focuses on health economics, particularly understanding and improving allocation of treatments in health care, as well as the organization and productivity of health care teams. She also has ongoing work examining socio-economic determinants of health and medical spending.