It”™s been a scene of drilling and hammering at St. Cabrini Nursing Home in Dobbs Ferry, a 300-plus-resident facility undergoing major renovations of the entire property.Â
The $55 million project, which began in 2000 and is slated to be finished in the spring of 2009, involved “a lot of upgrades,” said administrator Barbara Gaughan.
Though the nursing home has had a “wonderful reputation in the community for years based on dedicated families and dedicated staff,” according to Gaughan, the sprinkler system as well as bathing areas in the west wing needed to be replaced.
“There were some particular problems with the resident bathing areas,” said Gaughan, citing “the layout, the privacy and dignity of the residents.”
Also, she said, “There were some issues with water drainage. The resident bathrooms in the west wing had a little lip which prevented someone in a wheelchair to be independent and be in the bathroom, and that”™s so important: dignity, privacy and independence.”
In addition, there will be 100 additional private rooms, though the facility will not be adding any beds and will still have the same number of residents, 304. The added space will double the square footage.
The new rooms will be “bi-axial,” where two people will enter from the same door but have their own space in the room, including their own air conditioning and heating systems and their own window.
“One of the main things that everyone wants, not just older people, is privacy,” said Gaughan. “For many people, to come to a nursing home can be difficult; but to come to a nursing home and share their space can also be difficult. And although there are some residents that make really lasting friendships with their roommates, there are many people that prefer their own space.”
Most of the current double rooms will be renovated and converted into singles rooms for those residents who do not wish to have a roommate.
Each unit will also have a small space for an outdoor patio, some of which have views of the Hudson River.
The building”™s renovations began at the same time Cabrini started to implement its “person-centered care” program, which focuses on each individual resident and his or her needs. “So it”™s not just homelike, but that it is home, for the residents,” said Gaughan.
“One of the main directives of the program is to allow each unit of residents, which we will choose to call a neighborhood, to be able to get to activities,” said Gaughan.
One such space that each unit will have is a “country kitchen.”
“In every unit, we”™re changing the model of traditional tray delivery service,” said Gaughan. “No one eats on a tray in their home, so we want to make the daily life of the residents as normal to their living at home as possible.”
Each unit will also have a lounge area or a “great room” for residents to socialize with each other.
Another major area of socialization? Main Street.
Located off of the new lobby, “Main Street” will host a coffee shop, barber shop, beauty parlor and gift shop where residents can run errands, spend time with visiting family members or enjoy a day of pampering.
There will also be a new drop-off area in front of the lobby as well as an elevator from the parking lot to bring physically disabled residents up to the lobby. The parking lot is also being expanded and will have enlarged spaces.
Cabrini”™s rehabilitation unit is another area of the home being enhanced. According to Kathleen Birnbaum, director of rehab at Cabrini, the home has an average of 200 people discharged from the rehabilitation unit per year. In addition to its current physical, occupational and speech therapy programs, Cabrini will be adding an ADL ”“ activities of daily living ”“ room, where patients can practice some homemaking skills such as working around a kitchen, to make sure they”™re safe when they go home after rehabilitation. The rehab suite will also be enlarged.
Gaughan is looking forward to the project being finished. As a former nurse who worked in long-term care and with the elderly for years, she says her passion for the field is what the mission of the person-centered care movement is all about, “and that is recognizing the person as the focus of your care and not the disease, not the disability. And recognizing that keeping people at their kind of level of function is what it”™s all about. And dignity.”
