Benedictine Health System launched a care-at-home design team June 11 as part of its future vision and mission to care for Catholic elders, said Dale Thompson, chief executive officer for the Minnesota-based organization that will mark its 25th anniversary in 2010.
Thompson said BHS, which owns or manages about 40 long-term care facilities in seven states, is trying to rethink elder care by providing private rooms in its long-term care facilities, new independent-style living spaces and more home health care.
“We will have arrived when we are taking care of four people out in the community at home for every one we have on our campus,” Thompson said.
Reaching out to elders
That vision, which he expects to have in place in 2010, requires community networks and collaboration with groups that can help identify elders who need care.
That is why Thompson said he is excited about the call that’s gone out for a parish model in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis through Catholic Senior Services, which seeks to coordinate and enhance Catholic, parish-based housing and services for older adults.
“We’ve been working with Dan Gannon [CSS director],” he said. “The question is: ‘How are we going to come together and meet the needs of a growing number of Catholic elders with all we say we stand for in Catholic health care, especially with care of people at the end of life’?”
CSS has identified some parishes that are interested in working with a parish model that may include home health care or a senior living or care facility built on church property, Thompson said.
He added that BHS would like to explore a collaboration in this regard with St. Gertrude’s in Shakopee, which is connected to St. Francis Regional Medical Center, and also with its Cerenity facilities in St. Paul.
The care-at-home design team will offer home care for seniors that creates continuing-care retirement communities without needing a big campus, he said.
“Sometimes it’s about building a long-term care campus on the site of a Catholic parish church and attaching the two,” he said. “But, it’s more about harnessing the energy and compassion and interest and concern of the members of the parish.”
Parishioners can help identify the elders who need help and then put innovative block nurse programs together.
“You set up a situation where you commit to people — for the remainder of their life — a certain base level of services in the home that radiates off a campus approach,” Thompson explained. A life-care manager on campus would oversee the home care.
“We have been doing this everywhere else,” said Thompson of some 40 facilities in seven states that make up Benedictine Health System.
One of the greatest challenges with Catholic long-term care nationwide is that the communities of women religious that sponsor the facilities are shrinking, he said. About 400 of the 800 Catholic long-term care facilities in the United States are free-standing — not connected to a hospital, he noted.
Medicare reimbursements are stagnant or shrinking, health care costs are rising, and buildings need to be updated, Thompson said.
“We are reaching a tipping point,” he said. “If we looked at the last 15 years of what happened with Catholic hospitals coming together and consolidating their sponsorship, the same thing needs to happen with Catholic long-term care or there isn’t going to be any Catholic long-term care going forward.”
He said the BHS vision statement is about creating Benedictine living communities “where health, independence and choice come to life.”
Townhome-style option
Another new effort that BHS plans to have in place in 2010 is a townhome-style building that would provide private living accommodations for up to 10 people. Each person would have his or her own bedroom, bath and suite, with some common areas that would not be readily accessible to the public.
“Soon, we’ll be able to offer an array of other services, where people will be able to stay at home as long as they can, as long it doesn’t result in isolation, poor quality-of-life or poor care,” he said.
Sister Lois Eckes, prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, said that since BHS was created in 1985, it has “beautifully” carried on the Benedictine values of hospitality, stewardship, respect and justice.
Its mission continues to bring the healing love and compassion of Christ to everyone, especially those who are underserved, she added.
Sister Grace Marie Braun, who was instrumental in helping create BHS when she was serving as prioress in the 1980s, said, “The rule of St. Benedict speaks of the care of the sick and St. Benedict tells us that care must rank above all.”
And, she added, the sisters continue to be closely involved, serving on the BHS board and member institution boards, providing new employee orientation at the monastery and daily prayer for all involved in ministry to the sick and elderly.
Personal experience
Gary Robinson, a member of Guardian Angels in Oakdale, said his family has been on the receiving end of that care and prayer at the Marian Center, a BHS facility in St. Paul. His father, Edgar Robinson, lived at the home for about two and a half months before his death in May 2007. He was 94.
“One of the nice things is they have Mass six days a week at the Marian Center,” Robinson said. And the day that Edgar died, the priest who celebrated Mass went up to his room and gave him the sacrament of anointing.
“That’s a very comforting thought, and that’s one of the things I like about being Catholic, with the Marian Center, that you always have that available,” he said.
About the same time, Robinson and his brother, Charles, also helped his mother, Clementine, now 98, move into an assisted-living apartment at Marian Center. After a fall last year, she needed more care and moved into the facility.
“My brother and me, we are there almost every day,” said Robinson, who said they each will get Clementine from her room and take her to daily Mass.
“It’s important to me and it’s important to my mother,” he said. “The fact that it has that Catholic environment is very nice.” (source)