Program Highlight: Urban “Green House” SNF
Opening in Chelsea

The Chelsea Jewish Foundation is opening a Green House® nursing home in Chelsea, Massachusetts in February - the Leonard Florence Center for Living (LFCL).  The Green House model is an innovative model of nursing care that provides skilled nursing and daily care services to residents in a home-like environment.

T he vision for these specialized residences is based on the Green House® model (also called the “Eden Alternative”), developed by Dr. William Thomas. This unique concept is intended to de-institutionalize long-term care by eliminating large nursing facilities and creating “living-friendly,” social settings. Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Leonard Florence Center will consist of ten self-contained “houses" arranged vertically within a five story building on the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson  campus on Admiral’s Hill. Each home will be comprised of ten private bedrooms arranged around a common living room, dining area, and open kitchen. Each bedroom will have its own private bath and shower. The main floor of the building, "Main Street USA", has a café, bakery, chapel, deli, day spa, and a peace garden, allowing residents to "get out of the house."   

There will be no long corridors, no nurses' stations, no institutional meals or food carts. Instead, residents of each Green House will enjoy home-cooked meals prepared in their own kitchens and served at a common table just a few steps away from their rooms. Each house will have its own dedicated staff of “shahbazim”, caregivers who are devoted to the “arts of homemaking and the lovingly prepared meal”. A separate clinical support team – including nurses, social workers, therapists, medical directors, nutritionists, and pharmacists – will visit the houses regularly to provide services as needed.  

MS Residence and the nation’s first ALS Residence

Two of the ten residences at the Leonard Florence Center for Living are dedicated to individuals with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and MS. Residents will have access to advanced assistive technologies, ventilator support, lifts, and personalized mobile command centers to navigate independently throughout the campus.

The goal of the ALS and MS residences is to design and develop  “smart houses” that promote and support independence, regardless of the stage of the illness. Due to the unique architecture and small footprint of each Green House, cane-dependent or wheelchair-bound individuals will have independent mobility with meaningful choices and dignity. All efforts will be focused on sustaining mobility and, thus, lessoning physical demands.

UMass Lowell’s first smart technology infrastructure project

The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Assistive Technology Program, will provide the technology needed to allow residents to remain independent as long as possible.  With just the use of their eye muscles, they will be able to navigate themselves through the home, down the elevator to the main floor service facilities or out the door to the campus grounds and Peace garden in their mobilized command center.  

More information at http://www.chelseajewish.org/senior-living-and-short-term-rehabilitation/short-term-rehabilitation/short-term-rehabilitation-green-house-chelsea/ or contact Ina Hoffman at 617-887-0001, or via e-mail at ihoffman@cflestates.org.

-From “The Nursing Home of the Future! ”, News from Margolis & Bloom, LLP - December 21, 2009, Margolis & Bloom, LLP.

 

12/09