A shop of their own After years of selling at local farmers markets, Hexagon Bagels settles into a North Adams storefront. Page 7
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GILLIAN HECK
Berkshire Business Journal DECEMBER 2025 I VOL. 4, NO. 12
Long-term care in the pipeline
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN
William Jones is president and CEO of Pittsfield-based Integritus Healthcare, which employs 2,850 people at long-term care and senior housing facilities across the state — including eight in Berkshire County. Integritus, he said, has “a terrific group of people who do a remarkable job making a difference in the lives of the people they serve.”
Integritus Healthcare invests to meet a growing need By Greg Sukiennik PITTSFIELD — Artificial intelligence isn’t coming for jobs in long-term care. That’s a person-to-person, labor-intensive field with challenges and rewards a computer can’t handle. But more than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic, Pittsfield-based Integritus Healthcare, like other long-term care and health care providers, still faces workforce challenges created or worsened during that time. The workforce pipeline for health care workers has grown scarce, just as the need for long-term care is about to skyrocket. Integritus decided to build its own pipeline. Since identifying and beginning that work in 2009, with the launch of its first
strategic plan, Integritus has brought nonprofit’s president and CEO. Integriabout 200 people into nursing careers tus offers care including independent through support of higher education, senior living, rehabilitation, memory training and cacare and hospice. reer development. Like other longAn investment of Integritus operates 15 skilled term care providnearly $3 million ers, Integritus has has aided in the nursing centers with 1,950 relied upon “travcareer developeling nurse” staffment of 70 regis- beds and four senior housing ing services to tered nurses and backfill openings. communities with 227 84 licensed practiThose services cal nurses and led independent living units and pay a “signifito 19 nurses earncant premium” ing bachelors of 1,789 assisted living units. to those workers, science in nursing and the cost is degrees. passed along to “As nurses and aides retired or left the long-term care facility, Jones said. the industry altogether, we’ve come to “We’re not alone,” he said. “Every the other side of [the pandemic] with organization has had to deal with this this challenge,” said William Jones, the challenge.”
Developing and retaining workforce not only provides jobs for the region but also helps its largest long-term care and rehabilitation provider operate at lower cost, he said. “We have a strategic partnership with McCann Tech,” Jones said. “If you’re a CNA and want to become an LPN we’ve always paid your tuition and picked up the cost of books and uniforms. Last year we began to pay individuals to go to class as if they were working.” A paycheck for going to school? Yes, Jones said, and explained why that makes sense. “Many times we’re dealing with single moms who can’t juggle child care and get to class during the day,” Jones said. “So we’re doing things like that … to motiHEALTHCARE, Page 4