MINNEOTA — Minneota Manor Health Care Center will be closing in December amid struggles to recruit staff. But it doesn’t mean the end of assisted living care in Minneota, spokespeople said Wednesday.

“It’s a transition to a different mode of care,” said Minneota Manor Administrator Kathy Johnson.

While the nursing home will close, the Madison Avenue assisted living apartments and Town and Country Home Health in Minneota will be expanding services, she said.

“Our goal is to grow our assisted living, and grow our home health business,” said Jennifer Gleason, chief operations officers of Living Services Foundation, the nonprofit that owns Minneota Manor.

In a Wednesday announcement, Living Services Foundation said Minneota Manor would close Dec. 2. Gleason said 24 residents would be affected by the closure, but the majority of the residents would have the option of moving to Madison Avenue Apartments.

“We believe we can meet their needs in assisted living,” Gleason said.

Johnson said Minneota Manor will be following a closure process that works with residents’ families, the Minnesota Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and Southwest Health and Human Services.

Gleason said part of the reason for the transition away from skilled nursing care was that Minneota Manor has been struggling to find qualified staff.

“The big difficulty we’re having is recruiting RNs and LPNs,” Gleason said. Minneota Manor tried to find recruiting solutions, including making changes to their pay scales, but high demand for nurses nationwide made it hard to hire enough staff.

Staff at Minneota Manor have gone “above and beyond” to meet the needs of residents over the past 19 months, Living Services Foundation’s announcement said.

“They’re doing an excellent job,” Gleason said. However, current staff can’t carry that same workload forever, she said. Transitioning to assisted living and home health care services may make staffing and recruiting easier because those services don’t need the same level of 24-hour coverage by a registered nurse.

Recruiting and staffing is a challenge health care facilities are facing across the country. On the same day that Living Services Foundation announced it would be closing Minneota Manor, the Avera Health system announced it would be investing $50 million into its workforce to help recruit and retain employees.

As part of the investment, Avera would be moving to a minimum pay rate of $17 an hour and increasing current employees’ pay by at least $2 an hour, Avera spokespeople said Wednesday. The announcement also listed benefits like cash payments for referring new employees to Avera, paid time off for new hires, and cost reductions in certain tiers of health insurance for employees.

Johnson and Gleason said it wasn’t an easy decision to close Minneota Manor. But they hoped that by expanding assisted living services in Minneota, there will still be options for both current residents and staff. At this point, plans are still being worked out on what will happen to the Minneota Manor building after the transition. Gleason said one possibility is converting it to assisted living space.