"There is an increasing urgency and growing expectation for change in Australia – driven by residents, customers, workers, and regulators alike – to move to a model of care where the priority is the older person’s preferences and staff skills are developed and nurtured. The Green House Project delivers this."

ACH Group will be the first aged care provider in Australia to implement the U.S.-founded Green House Project (GHP) model of care, which promotes the autonomy and individuality of residents and staff. Informed by person-directed care principles, GHP maximizes the independence of residents, empowers staff, and enhances the benefits of the highly regarded small household design that Healthia has adopted.

Small, household models of skilled nursing care are not new, but they have been largely overlooked until the COVID-19 pandemic, during which they fared far better than traditional nursing homes. At the same time, a growing body of research shows a multitude of quality advantages over traditional nursing homes.

Private rooms alone won’t remedy nursing home system’s shortcomings. “The Green House model is a lot more than just the building,” says Alex Spanko. “It’s about the culture, too.”

“The only question,” Cook said, “is whether they will take the harsh lessons of the pandemic to heart and implement empowering care models such as Green House — or choose to ignore the experiences of elders and decades of research and build the exact same types of traditional, outdated buildings that failed too many Canadians before, during and after COVID-19.”

"Analysts say the nursing-home model is outdated. Many nursing homes are 40 or 50 years old, looking much like hospitals: large, impersonal and with shared rooms. Research has shown that smaller nursing homes — like ones known as Green Houses — often provide better, more personal care."

“It’s important that we leverage what we learned … this could be a game changer, it could really provide that level of support and incentives to really help us achieve what we all want,” Susan Ryan, CEO for the Center for Innovation, told SNN.