The Eddy Village Green brings continuum of care full circle
After years in the making, a unique expansion to the Beverwyck retirement community has opened its doors to not only a waiting list but wide interest.
The Eddy Village Green at Beverwyck, consisting of two, 12-bed greenhouse style cottages, has quickly filled up half its space and will occupy the rest in the near future, said Beverwyck Executive Director Doug Miller. In fact, there were 54 applications for the 24 beds upon the facility’s opening.
`We have had an overwhelming interest in this model, not only from our residents but from other providers,` he said.
A documentary team recently visited Beverwyck to tour the Eddy Village Green, hoping to use it as a model for the changing landscape of elder care. In fact, the two cottages are some of the only ones of their kind in the nation, and are on the forefront of what many consider to be the future of the skilled nursing care industry.
The greenhouse style of care is driven by some simple principles, all aimed a making the experience more homelike. It’s in stark contrast to the institutional environment normally associated with nursing homes, where things are run like a hospital.
At the Eddy Village Green, the hallways are devoid of food carts, because the meals are prepared in an open kitchen and taken in the dining room. Extra linens are stored in patients’ rooms. Nurses don’t even need to push about carts to deliver medication, because each room has the resident’s pills in a locked medicine cabinet just inside the door. The rooms themselves are bigger that normal (about 90 square feet) and have a fold-out recliner so family can sleep over if necessary.
`This is ` not to try ` this is to succeed in providing privacy and dignity,` said Miller.
The building is also appointed with the latest technology, from electronic entry systems to a wireless paging network, so there are no bells or lights going off. The kitchen is also modern and handsomely appointed, and serves as the center of the community space.
This is important, said social worker Caroline Curley, as seeing and smelling meals being prepared tends to stoke the appetite. Residents can even help out in the kitchen, if they’re able.
`It really is the way the elderly should be cared for,` she said.
Curley has 30 years of experience in the nursing industry, and said she came out of retirement to work in the new cottages because she was so excited about the innovative model. Residents have adjusted to the facility quickly, she said. Seniors moving into a skilled care facility generally take about three months to adjust, but at the Eddy Village Green they’re settling in in as little as three weeks.
This personalized care, technology and space does come at a premium. Beds at one of the cottages go for $374 a day, higher than the industry nursing home standard. The tradeoff, said Miller, is an unprecedented level of comfort and security for the resident, better access for the family and overall happier seniors.
Importantly, the $6 million Eddy Village Green rounds out the spectrum of care available at the North Bethlehem campus, where residents can progress needs dictate from independent apartment living to daily assisted living to the greenhouse skilled nursing facility. Families are less likely to have to look for another, potentially distant, facility down the line.
Beverwyck, which operates under the banner of Northeast Health, had originally had a very different vision for this skilled nursing component. In the late ’80s, the plan was to build a 120-bed facility on the space. That institutional style of care, with five times as many residents as the Green, was and still is the common denominator in the industry.
`That was the model then, in fact it was the minimum number of beds that would financially work,` Miller said.
Perhaps the most definite drawback to the greenhouse-style model is that it is limited by design to serving only a handful of residents. Depending on the success of these two cottages, there could be more greenhouse-style housing in Beverwyck’s future, though. Northeast’s Cohoes facility has 192 such beds. Other potential future projects for the campus include and aquatics center. “
