Admission to a nursing home doesn’t mean forever living there. Times are changing.

Lee Roy Cade, 66, did something remarkable last month.

He moved out of a nursing home.

Cade arrived at the Centennial Village nursing home in Philadelphia two years ago after a stroke. He needed a feeding tube and a diaper, and was unable to hold up his head. He had lost his left leg to diabetes.

When he got better, he had no home or family to return to.

“For a quite a number of decades, when an older person had been in a nursing home for more than three months … nobody thought they would leave,” said Rosalie A. Kane, a professor at the University of Minnesota and national expert on long-term care. “Inevitably, that would be their last home.”

This has been changing in places around America.

In the 1990s, Oregon and Washington began a major shift to move people out of nursing homes and back into their own homes, where most people would much rather be.

Today, nobody is in a Washington state nursing home for more than seven days before a case manager shows up to discuss community options and discharge planning.

In the last five years, efforts to transfer people out of nursing homes have accelerated. Since 2001, New Jersey, for example, has relocated 5,000 people.

Pennsylvania began experimenting in seven rural counties in 2001. About 18 months ago, it rolled out the Nursing Home Transition program in Philadelphia. It is now underway statewide.

Who would ever imagine a resident who has lost a leg, has diabetes and a G Tube would LEAVE a nursing home ALIVE?
Start thinking. It’s going to happen more and more. It’s cheaper than nursing home care; it’s better for the resident.

Read the rest of this article—>