First of its kind home for those on ventilators opens in Chelsea

Categories: Local News Items, In The News

Unlike a typical nursing home setting, the Leonard Florence Center consists of 10 7,000-square-foot condominium-style “homes” on six floors that care for both short- and long-term care residents. Many previously on ventilators have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. It’s called a “Green House” model of care because each home has 10 private rooms with comfortable furniture and private baths that are grouped around a common living area with a fireplace, open kitchen, and dining room with access to other amenities.

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  • There’s already a waiting list for Navigator Homes, which will be the Island’s first care facility to follow the Green House Model of Nursing Home Care. At Navigator Homes in Edgartown, the five buildings surround a central green space, where landscaping plans include walking paths connecting the residences. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is financing the buildings’ construction. 

  • Evidence-based culture change partners provide professionals with supportive, interdisciplinary training.  “We need as many Green Houses as possible and households or buildings to be built with wise investment of public and private dollars,” Anne Montgomery said. “The EINSTEIN Option calls for this to happen and lays out a blueprint for it.”

  • “If we’re going to elevate the resident’s voice, we’ve got to include residents,” said Laci Cornelison, interim director of the Center on Aging at Kansas State University and coalition member, during her session at Pioneer Network and The Green House Project’s 2024 Conference on Wednesday. “We really wanted to take an approach where we’re looking at things through the lens of culture change and person-centered care. We focus mostly on quality of life rather than clinical needs.”

  • “At a time when hospitals continued to push more post-surgical patients straight to home care, Londonderry Village in Palmyra, PA, decided to invest in six Green House homes with 10 beds each. ‘We believed in that culture and that quality of care,’ said President and CEO Jeff Shireman. ‘People have great experiences in that environment.'”