The iBirkshares.com web site reports that Kimball Farms is celebrating its twentieth anniversary of continuous service.  The continuing care retirement community located in Lenox Massachusetts.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

While there have been other Lifecare communities established in the United States previous to inception of the Kimball Farms Lifecare model, it is the first Lifecare community in Berkshire County offering residents a unique and independent lifestyle while covering their long term health care needs. Kimball Farms is now the only Lifecare community in Western Massachusetts.

As the needs of the population have changed, Kimball Farms has evolved to better serve the community. In May, 2000, PineHill Assisted Living was added to the footprint of Kimball Farms on its Walker Street campus. PineHill consists of 48 apartments and offers 24-hour services for those needing help with daily living. In 2002, the long-term care services, Kimball Farms Nursing Care Center, was relocated into the vacated Edgecomb Nursing Home on Sunset Street in Lenox. The entire facility was renovated to increase its capacity from 41 to 74 beds.

Kimball Farms continues to add services providing an even more active and social atmosphere, particularly for aging baby-boomers who expect such amenities. Kimball will soon open the “Pleasant Pheasant Pub and Lounge,” which will offer residents an additional dining option with space for socializing and relaxation.

Kimball Farms

According to the 2009 annual survey by MetLife, it costs on average $18,000 more per year for a private room compared to a semi-private room in Massachusetts.  Or course, the difference varies significantly from facility to facility.  You can see the complete MetLife report (in PDF form) here.

According to the 2009 annual survey by MetLife, the average cost of nursing home care in Massachusetts is as follows:

$107,000 (semi-private room)

$115,000 (private room)

The annual costs ranged across the state from a low $73,000 for a semi-private room to a high of $151,000 for a private room. You can see the complete MetLife report (in PDF form) here.

The Republican reports that the Mary Lyon Skilled Nursing Center in Hampden, MA is undergoing extensive renovation and getting a new name.  The owner of the facility, Wingate Healthcare, purchased the100-bed  nursing home in 2006 and owns sixteen other nursing homes in Massachusetts.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Besides a new color scheme, renovations will include a sun room that resembles a front porch where residents will be encouraged to sit and talk. There will also be an outdoor walking path enclosed with a fence. The nursing home’s lobby area will be transformed into a gallery for participants in the art therapy program.

Stout said she didn’t yet know how much the renovations will cost in total. But a recently completed septic system cost $1 million, and Wingate is financing the work. She expects the project to continue well into 2010.

“It’s like having an old house,” she said. “You don’t know what you will find.”

The facility has a staff of 100 to 120 people, including those who run activities in the evening. Some Alzheimer’s sufferers get agitated at night without something to occupy their time, Stout said.

The nursing home got its original name because the people who started it were related to Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke College, Stout said.

According to the 2009 annual survey by MetLife, the average cost of nursing home care in the Boston area is as follows:

$107,000 (semi-private room)

$119,000 (private room)

The annual costs ranged from a low $91,000 for a semi-private room to a high of $151,000 for a private room.  You can see the complete MetLife report (in PDF form) here.

According to the 2009 annual survey by MetLife, the average cost of nursing home care in the Worcester area is as follows:

$107,000 (semi-private room)

$112,000 (private room)

The annual costs in Worcester ranged from a low $89,000 for a semi-private room to a high of $132,000 for a private room.  You can see the complete MetLife report (in PDF form) here.

According to the Melrose Free Press,  a nurse aid at EPOCH Senior Health Care was charged with elder abuse for allegedly punching and pushing an 83-year old resident that has Alzheimer’s disease.    According to the newspaper article the victim’s roommate witnessed the incident which occurred in September 2008.  Here is an excerpt form the story:

Melrose – UPDATED MONDAY, AUG. 17 AT 4:54 P.M.:A former certified nurse aide at Melrose’s EPOCH Senior Healthcare nursing home was arraigned in Malden District Court yesterday on charges that she punched and pushed down an 83-year-old resident of the nursing home who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
Jill Butterworth, spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said the alleged assault took place on Sept. 17, 2008. The victim got out of her bed at the nursing home, located at 15 Green St. in Melrose, around 4 a.m., according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office, and began to wander around her room.

The CEO of EPOCH Senior Health Care issued a statement which reads in part (full text here, scroll down):

“We are appalled by these allegations. We have from the start, and will continue to fully cooperate with the attorney general’s office to assist with the investigation and prosecution, and if these allegations are true, we want the individual convicted and appropriately punished.

“Immediately upon learning of the allegations in September 2008, we took all the appropriate actions. EPOCH immediately suspended the employee and notified the authorities. Upon completion of our internal investigation, the employee was terminated. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health conducted an investigation at EPOCH of Melrose and did not find any deficiencies in how EPOCH handled the situation.

The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog profiles an interesting partnership between nursing home operator Hebrew SeniorLife and local colleges that allows students in the areas of medicine, social work, dental school and business to complete internships and the company’s Hebrew Rehabilitation Center facility.  Here’s a link and an excerpt:

For the first time this year, all second-year Harvard medical students are doing two-week rotations through Hebrew SeniorLife’s nursing homes, learning how to examine patients. Boston University sends its dental students, Boston College and University of Massachusetts send nursing students, and Simmons College social-work students pass through as well. All told, some 750 students rotate through the group’s biggest nursing home, Hebrew Rehabilitation Center.

And this spring, Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management is announcing a new concentration in aging services for its MBA program, giving students training in managing geriatric services at Hebrew SeniorLife.

At the other end of the pay scale, Hebrew SeniorLife offers nurse aides a day off a week, plus training, remedial classes and child-care, to work toward becoming a licensed practical nurse, or LPN. It isn’t cheap: A state grant pays $250,000 of the costs, and donations cover the remaining $200,000, says Len Fishman, Hebrew SeniorLife’s president and CEO. “It’s a way of saying to people, long-term-care is not a dead end.”

Such arrangements are rare, largely thanks to the cost – and staffing pressures. “The first thing you need are patients, and the second thing you need are health-care professionals who have a spare moment to be providing high-quality teaching,” Fishman, a former New Jersey Commissioner of Health and Senior Services, tells Health Blog. “Most long-term-care facilities are small; they don’t have medical staffs.”

Ultimately, as Baby Boomers age, much of the slack will have to be taken up by non-specialists. It’ll help if docs and others remember that, unlike some kinds of medical specialties, geriatrics is more about juggling a patient’s many conditions and risks. Does the chance that a drug makes a patient dizzy and raises their chance of falling outweigh the benefit from lowering their blood-pressure?

“Physicians are interested in what causes the problem, but the patients are interested in what the problem will cause in their lives,” says Fredrick T. Sherman, a professor of geriatrics and medicine at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. “What they really want us to do is to maintain and improve their function.”

An article in Stanford Advocate reports that an audit by the State of Connecticut suggests that nursing home owner Marathon Healthcare is under financial hardship and facing bankruptcy. According to the article, Marathon Healthcare runs seven nursing homes including Marathon-Springfield which is a 127 bed facility located in Springfield Massachusetts. According to the report, the Springfield facility is for sale. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Nursing home firm finances called shaky
By Brian Lockhart
Staff Writer

March 6, 2008

A state audit has concluded that East Hartford-based Marathon Healthcare, which runs seven nursing homes, including one in Norwalk, is under financial hardship and could be facing bankruptcy.

But John McCormick, the Department of Social Services employee who performed the review, did not recommend the state go to court to assume control of the company.

“It is my opinion that the appointment of a receiver is not the appropriate action at this time,” McCormick wrote in his final report, released yesterday by the department.

[. . .]

The chain continues to provide high-quality patient care and already was addressing some of the financial issues cited in the audit, he said. He blamed the problems in part on late Medicaid payments from the department.

“It is a significant factor,” Neagus said. “I don’t know if I can say we wouldn’t be having the conversation (about financial issues) but it would be a different conversation.”

But McCormick’s report concluded one of the biggest strains on the company’s finances is its Springfield, Mass., location, which is for sale.

“Marathon has been undermined by the funding of Marathon-Springfield (which) has drained $4.2 million in cash from the Connecticut facility,” McCormick wrote.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services did not return a telephone call seeking further information.

The Connecticut Department of Social Services announced its audit of Marathon on Jan. 11 in response to a November financial statement that showed the company’s debt exceeded its assets by $3.3 million.

The department at the time reported that Marathon was dropped by contractors Quest Diagnostics and Swallowing Diagnostics last year after the businesses were not paid for their services.

And on Jan. 7, to ensure its staff was paid on time, Marathon asked the Department of Social Services for a $1 million advance for Medicaid reimbursements set to be paid to the nursing home agency the following week.

McCormick found several “red flags” at Marathon. He said the company, as of Nov. 30, had entered into verbal repayment agreements or promissory notes with vendors totaling $4.2 million and had other accrued expenses of $5.1 million.

At the same time, the chain, according to the audit, had over-borrowed its $6 million line of credit with Webster Bank by $549,204; it had incurred net operating losses of $386,516 as of September 2006 and $219,503 as of September 2007.

McCormick noted those losses were before distributions were made to Marathon owner Earle Lerner of $455,580 in 2006 and $253,924 in 2007.

“Marathon’s financial condition . . . does warrant extremely close monitoring by this department,” McCormick wrote. “The inability of Marathon to meet its current financial obligations may result bankruptcy action by creditors or by Marathon itself.”

[. . .]