Being Mortal: High Praise for The Green House Project Care Model

In his new book, Being Mortal, Atul Gawande holds up the Green House® Project and its creator Dr. Bill Thomas, as bright, imaginative, perhaps radical leaders in the field of long term care. As White Oak Cottages is a Green House Home adopter, this accolade brings great pride.

Dr. Gawande is a surgeon, Harvard Medical School professor,The New Yorker staff writer, and recipient of many awards and honors. His writings are known for their unflinching look at some of the thorniest issues in medicine.

Being Mortal covers the spectrum of challenges that arise as people age and experience a slow, but relentless decline. He details the stories of several elders whose declining function eventually results in a move to an institutional setting. In his interviews with these elders, it is very clear is that they still have a strong sense of self, a need to belong to a community, and a desire for companionship and intellectual stimulation. Unfortunately, most nursing homes fail to provide any support for these needs.

In tracing the history of the nursing home, Dr. Gawande explains that they were created not to address the needs of the elderly, but to solve a problem for the hospitals. In the 1950s, hospitals did not know what to do with elderly patients with chronic conditions that had no medical cure who were taking up many hospital beds. The nursing home was created along the same lines as the hospital, so that hospitals could transfer these elders and free up hospital beds for patients with curable medical problems.

For full write-up on “Being Mortal,” visit http://whiteoakcottages.com/?p=3619