Shrinking the Nursing Home. When you think of a nursing home, isolation, loneliness, and the non-homelike feeling comes to mind. However, at Green Hill Retirement Community, these things are far from existence.
Jagassar
Shrinking the Nursing Home
When you think of a nursing home, isolation, loneliness, and the non-homelike feeling comes to mind. However, at Green Hill Retirement Community, these things are far from existence. Ms. Davis, the director of Green Hill, has made this nursing home into a place that doesn’t feel far from home. Residents that stay here are much more tended to and comfortable, instead of the daily routine at a typical nursing home, where an elder is likely to be mistreated and less tended to. Green Hill has given hope to residents and families finding that there is improvement over standard nursing home care.
At Green Hill, “Just 10 residents live in each so-called Green House, which looks nothing like a traditional nursing home” (Tarkan, 2011). There is a living and dining area which includes a long dining table, shared by residents of Green Hill, in which meals are served. In an open faced kitchen, caregivers can interact with residents while meals are being prepared. “There are no corridors, no nursing stations, no medicine carts (each room has a locked cabinet containing the resident’s medications) and no trays of food delivered to the rooms” (Tarkan, 2011). Each home is staffed with two nursing aides and one registered nurse to two or three houses, which allows more time with the residents and getting to know them. The article reports that residents experienced fewer bed sores than those in a standard nursing home. Also, residents receive more direct and personal care, reportedly feeling more satisfied with their physical environment, privacy, their own autonomy, health care and meals. “Employees, too, report less stress” (Tarkan, 2011).
