A radical departure from traditional nursing homes
THE GREEN HOUSE® Project represents a revolution in long-term care, creating small homes that return control, dignity, and a sense of well-being to elders, while providing high-quality, personalized care.
A Green House home differs from a traditional nursing home in terms of facility size, interior design, organizational structure, staffing patterns, and methods of delivering skilled professional services. Green House homes are designed from the ground up to look and feel like a real home.
At the center of The Green House model are skilled nursing assistants called shahbazim who manage residents' care, with support from nurses and therapists—a reversal of the traditional nursing home model.
The results of The Green House Project are simple and profound: elders are happier and healthier. RWJF support is helping to spread The Green House model across the United States. More than 260 Green House homes in 32 states are open or under development.
In the current issue of Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal, Jane Lowe, team director, shares how we grow visionary solutions to scale to improve the health of vulnerable populations.
RWJF selects The Green House Project as a Force Multiplier as part of our 40th anniversary celebration. A Force Multiplier is a program, a policy, an approach to a challenge that dramatically increases—or multiplies—effectiveness or impact.
Families share how The Green House Project is transforming skilled nursing care for their loved ones.
The story features new research about Green House homes, including two evaluation studies indicating that, over the long term, the Green House model is a sound investment.
*Financial Implications of The Green House Model in Senior Housing & Care Journal, Vol. 19, No 1
David Farrell
It’s been 20 years since federal laws passed and significantly improved the quality of care in America's nursing homes. Physical restraint use, pressure sores and other serious deficiencies have all declined dramatically. So, we must ask ourselves why then do people still dread the thought of being admitted to a nursing home?
Leading the list of fears is that these places feel institutional—and that they’re isolating and take away our loved ones’ sense of dignity and privacy. In other words, they don’t look or feel anything like a real home. Through our evidence-based model, THE GREEN HOUSE® Project has mitigated those fears entirely by radically changing the physical environment and how staff work together to ensure that elders receive excellent care and enjoy the great quality of life they deserve.
THE GREEN HOUSE® Project is carving a new path for nursing care—by finding a way to deliver long-term care in a small, home-like setting, while still meeting the same federal regulations and costing about the same as traditional facilities. Someday elders will stop asking their kids to promise them that they will never put them in a nursing home. THE GREEN HOUSE® Project will be a big reason why.
Investigators from various disciplines such as economics, nursing, social sciences and statistics are conducting evaluations under several coordinated Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants. The collaboration is meant to ensure a comprehensive set of evaluations that provide information on the implementation and impact of The Green House long-term care model from different perspectives.
Until recently, long-term care meant placement in an institution such as a nursing home. The “culture change” movement is transforming long-term care by promoting more home-like facilities and providing more options for consumers to receive care how and where they want it, in their communities. These models typically include new types of physical environments, organizational practices, and workforce features that benefit consumers and direct care workers while remaining cost-effective.
A radical departure from traditional nursing homes, the Green House is a place where elders can receive assistance and support with daily living and clinical care without the assistance and care becoming the focus of their existence.
$125,000 awarded to International Severity Information Systems, Inc- Assessing turnover in management and staff at Green House homes compared with outher skilled nursing facilities
$340,814 awarded to University of Wisconsin-Madison- Exploring how variations in implementation of the Green House model impact outcomes
$1,049,514 awarded to International Severity Information Systems, Inc- Evaluating the Green House model to examine care structures and processes related to resident outcomes
$699,254 awarded to Harvard Medical School- Comparing the Green House model with traditional nursing homes on cost and quality of care
$299,863 awarded to Pennsylvania State University- Supporting a collaborative research team to evaluate the Green House Project
$49,984 awarded to Pioneer Network in Culture Change- Conducting a survey of high-functioning nursing homes to inform RWJF's evaluation of the Green House initiative
$4,848,124 awarded to NCB Capital Impact- Expanding the Green House Replication Initiative to accelerate adoption of the Green House model
$6,848,124 awarded to NCB Capital Impact- Green House Initiative
$725,538 awarded to NCB Capital Impact- Implementing financial and clinical benchmarking systems in the replication of Green House's small community homes as alternatives to nursing homes
April 8, 2013- The Wall Street Journal features The Green House Project as a model that will slow the increase of expenses and improve the care of patients with dementia.
Read moreApril 4, 2013 - U.S. News reports, "it turns out that a very small-scale solution can deliver a terrific quality of life for seniors that is not beyond their financial reach."
Read moreMarch 20, 2013- Martin Bayne, an assisted-living advocate, speaks with the New York Time's Old Age Blog about long-term care and mentions the Green House Project as an example of the fusion of humanity with caregiving.
February 20, 2013 - Fast Company's Co.Exist highlights The Green House Project and speaks with RWJF Senior Adviser for Program Development Jane Isaacs Lowe.
Read moreDecember 2012 - The Green House Project's creator is featured by AARP as one of the nine most influential people who are changing the perception of aging.
