Local nursing home changes name, looks to future

By Scott Wright

CENTRE — The management and staff of the local nursing home are working to create a different experience for the wave of elderly they anticipate will eventually be heading to their facility.

The first cosmetic step was to change the facility’s name to more accurately reflect the wide variety of services the nursing home offers residents.

“Nursing homes -- this one and every other throughout the country -- are going through what’s called a ‘culture change,’” says Administrator of Operations John Boggs. “We’re all trying to get away from an institutionalized setting to more of a home-like setting.”

Cherokee County Nursing Home, now called Cherokee County Health and Rehabilitation Center (CCHRC), is part of the culture change, because nursing homes are not specifically old folks homes anymore, Boggs says. These days, it’s not uncommon for the ages of patients at the CCHRC to range from 19 to over 100.

“We’re very proud of the fact that we can serve basically any need in the county,” Boggs said. “We offer rehabilitation services for someone involved in a car wreck, or who may have fell and broken their hip. Eldery people who don’t want to go to a nursing home don’t have to anymore. Now they can come to the Health and Rehabilitation Center.”

The entire facility consists of 185 skilled beds. Thirty-four of those are set aside in a special Alzheimer’s unit, with another 12 located in the rehabilitation center.

“We’re by far a step ahead of the state and the southeast with our Alzheimer’s unit,” Boggs says. “That allows us to give another level of specialized service to our residents.”

Boggs says plenty of nursing home facilities have specialties, but his facility’s Alzheimer’s unit was specially designed by a renowned Alzheimer’s specialist, allowing staffers to cater to those who suffer from various stages of dementia.

“Senior citizens are living longer and, unfortunately, when you live longer diseases like Alzheimer’s come along, as well,” Boggs says. “About one in four people, by the age of 65, will contract Alzheimer’s. By age 85, that ratio rises to about 1-in-2.”

Boggs says the Alzheimer’s unit helps accommodate that rising number of elderly people who suffer from the disease.

“We have a track for our residents to walk along, as well as fish tanks, bird aviaries, dining rooms, activity rooms,” Boggs says. “There’s something going on all the time in those rooms. It helps keep them active.”

Boggs says two alternatives to traditional nursing homes -- assisted living and specialty care -- are also available at CCHRC, and contributed to the decision to make the facility’s name sound more friendly and inclusive.

“Specialty care treats patients with early-stage dementia,” Boggs explains. “And assisted living is for people who are still able to come and go as they want. Some have their cars and go to the beach for the weekend. But they don’t have to cook and clean, they don’t have to mow grass, they don’t have to worry with their laundry.”

Boggs says all assisted living in Alabama is privately paid, and usually runs about $2,000 to $2,500 per month.

“That’s everything, too,” Boggs says. “We don’t charge for cable TV or extra meals and snacks. And it’s also non-profit, so all we’re trying to do there is break even.”

Boggs says the staff will even go out of their way to make a resident’s new apartment in the assisted living wing feel as much like home as possible.

“Some people come in and they want a ceiling fan, or their own carpet, to make it look like home” Boggs says. “Or they want to bring their own furniture, and if they want that we let them do that.”

Staffing at CCHRC is also uncommon, compared to what might be found at a typical nursing home-type facility, Boggs says. Where other nursing homes the size of CCHRC staff around 60 or 70 certified nursing assistants (CNA), the Centre campus staffs in excess of 90 CNAs. “We have on staff, currently, about 30 licensed practical nurses (LPN) and about 17 registered nurses (RN),” Boggs says. “Those are pretty high ratios.”

Boggs says the fact that the facility is non-profit means that the more money the facility brings in, the more is spent on increasing the number of CNAs, LPNs, and RNs on staff.

Boggs said nursing home costs run around $150 a day, which pays for a wide range of services.

“If you divide that amount by 24 hours and then consider all we offer, including RN and LPN services, three meals a day, activities throughout the day, social services, maintenance, not many facilities can do that for $6.25 an hour,” Boggs says.

Boggs says part of the facility’s recent expansion efforts include refurbishing rooms, or apartments, as they’re now called. Recently, he approved the expenditure of over $30,000 worth of new furniture.

“But that’s only enough for about 10 rooms at a time,” Boggs says. “We are also painting, adding lighting as needed, or maybe something as simple as adding new toilets. Some residents may need handicapped-accessible toilets and we try to provide that.”

Boggs says there’s also a complete overhaul of the remainder of the facilities underway, as well.

“We’re putting in new nursing stations also, and we hope they’ll be more user-friendly for our staff, as well as for patients and their families,” Boggs says. “We’re also going to be adding more computers throughout the facility in order to go paperless and better protect the privacy of our residents.”

Eventually, Boggs says he hopes to be able to add computers to medical carts to further aid in the treatment of patients.

Boggs also mentioned the facility’s new education activities building, which hosted its first event earlier this month.

“We had people come from Huntsville, Birmingham, Rome, Ga. -- about a 150-mile radius -- attend a two-day Alzheimer’s seminar,” Boggs says. “We had about 250 people in here learning about how to take care of their loved ones, and we’re going to do that every month.”

Boggs also points to the on-site day care facility, which helps CCHRC hire staffers who might have difficulty making it to work otherwise.

“It’s a licensed day care center, and right now we’re even looking to expand the hours to allow supply our second shift with child care,” Boggs says. “Our residents are just as important to us in the evenings as they are in the mornings. We want to have a full shift at 10 o’clock at night if we can. If it will help our residents, that’s what we want to do.”

Boggs says the board of directors and facility management are constantly looking at ways to make sure the needs of the community -- and the area’s resident population -- are met.

“As the population continues to grow older, and depending on future Medicaid funding, you may see a free-standing hospice on the campus,” Boggs says. “That’s a need that may arise. Unfortunately, as people with diseases age, those diseases sometimes become terminal and we’d like a facility where family members could come and visit those patients.”

Boggs says a statewide moratorium on nursing home growth currently prevents the Centre campus from expanding any further, though he says there are another 13 acres where expansion could take place if timing and financial considerations allow.

“CCHRC can grow, depending on the board and financial considerations,” Boggs says. “We may eventually look at expanding our facilities to Leesburg or Cedar Bluff, when the need arises. We might also look at some adult apartments for the aging population, at some point in the future.”

Boggs says that because of its status as a retirement community, Cherokee County ends up with more than its fair share of elderly people who might eventually decide to move into the nursing home.

“There are other counties in Alabama that have higher elderly ratios, but Cherokee County does have a high elderly population,” Boggs says. “The state Department of Health continually looks at those numbers and awards beds accordingly.”

But with a statewide moratorium in place and the baby boomer generation getting older every year, Boggs says something will eventually have to change if all those elderly people are going to receive the care they need, even from a five-star facility like Cherokee County Health and Rehabilitation Center.

“There are about 2.5 million nursing home beds throughout the United States,” Boggs says seriously. “And there are 65 million Americans getting ready to turn 65. This wave is coming and we’ve got to prepare for it.”

Boggs says he knows plenty of families will be making the hard decision to move a loved one into a nursing home in the years ahead. He says he hopes visitors to CCHRC will see all the work that is being performed to take the institutionalized feel out of every aspect of the facility.

“No one wants to go to a nursing home,” Boggs says. “We try to take out some of the feeling of being an undesirable place with good food, courtyards, constant activities -- we want this to be a comfortable, enjoyable place to be.”

Are he and his staff getting the job done? Boggs thinks so.

“So many times when we have residents who return from the hospital, they tell us they’re glad to be home,” Boggs says. “That’s a pretty wonderful feeling.”