Leading Age - January/February 2011 - 16

Affordable Wellness
Creative providers bring wellness programs to affordable senior housing and community services.
b y M o r g a n G a bl e

Wellness programs are popping up in affordable housing communities and home and community-based services programs across the country. Here is a look at two provider programs—one that focuses on health education and proactive monitoring and one that works to bring the inner artists out of residents—that are helping residents and members of the community stay active and maintain healthy lifestyles.

he WellElder® program at Northern California Presbyterian Homes and Services (NCPHS) has been around for 13 years, since the organization recognized that its older adult residents were becoming more and more frail. NCPHS, in collaboration with the Institute on Aging in San Francisco, designed the WellElder model to help residents age in place and remain in their apartments even as their care needs changed. Ramona Davies, NCPHS’ director of community services, says the program uses a “health educator,” a registered nurse or a licensed vocational nurse, to work in cooperation with a building’s service coordinator. The program is operating in three NCPHS properties and in the Bethany Center’s senior housing building. WellElder provides wellness and health education and health monitoring and assistance in identifying and accessing needed health and supportive resources. Davies says the biggest challenge prior to the creation of WellElder was that there were resources available to help residents as they aged, but it was difficult to market these services in a way that made the residents want to sign up for them. However, with the addition of the health educator, and especially because of the educators’ medical background, they have found that residents are more likely to take advantage of these services and to take a more active role in their health. To sign up as “WellElder members,” participants must agree to release their health background information and sign a release, similar to what is currently done in some agreements with service coordinators. The residents then meet one-onone with the health educator and complete an assessment. The health educator visits residents in their apartments, checks for potential safety hazards and even peeks into the refrigerator to get a sense of possible nutritional problems or needs, thus getting a more holistic understanding of what is going on with the participant. The health educator, and in some sites the service coordinator, also assists with care coordination when participants are transitioning to and from the hospital. According to Davies, the health educators are scheduled

LeadingAge magazine | January/February 2011

Leading Age - January/February 2011

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