Encouraging Advancement for Nursing Home Care

Early in my career I was the Director of Planning at a multi-level care facility in Massachusetts that included a nursing home. While the NH provided excellent care, it was still an institution. I always have thought since then that there has to be a better way. This link describes a very promising concept in MA that provides the same level of care but in a more home-like setting:

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=527585

Key excerpt:

Klein’s nursing home lifestyle is also notable for what it isn’t. There's no long gray linoleum corridors with doors that open onto shared rooms with nothing but a curtain between the beds. No beeping monitors or carts full of soiled linens and no patients in wheelchairs parked in the hallways. Few rules govern when, what and where residents can eat.

The brand new facility is one of a new breed of small, homey nursing facilities cropping up around the country, thanks to state collaborations with the nursing home industry, federal regulators and advocates for the elderly and disabled. It looks like a place only wealthy families could afford, but about half of its residents get their bills paid by Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor.