Skilled Nursing Facilities - Real Estate or Health Care?

This is the opening line of a recent article on the "Dealmaker's Forum" (Levin Associates) website:

"Skilled nursing companies have always had a difficult time explaining themselves to investors.  Are they health care companies, or are they large real estate entities with an important health care business component?"

Herein, in my opinion, lies much of the problem with the way skilled nursing facilities are being run today, and the injury, death and neglect that sometimes follows as a result. The focus on the business side of nursing homes (particularly the happiness of investors) drives business decisions that should be driven more by concerns for patient care. A nursing home has to make money in order to survive; but catering to the big business of Wall Street seems pretty clearly to steer motives away from true quality care. The deal-making described in this article has to do directly with Sun Health (i.e., Sunbridge nursing homes) and the splitting off of it's nursing home real estate into a new REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust).