The new nursing home, called "Willow Creek," has 34 beds in order to create an intimate environment and implement the household model of care, which aims to make an institution feel like a house.
At Willow Creek, the nursing home institution is replaced with an authentic home where residents receive a high level of quality clinical care in a highly residential setting. Willow Creek is designed, look and feel like traditional homes. Each features private bedrooms and bathrooms and open dining and living areas. At the heart of the home sits a family-style kitchen that's meant to bring every aspect of home life to the forefront of daily living.
Riverside broke ground on the remodel in the Fall of 2014. Riverside Healthy Living Community in Smithfield includes assisted living apartments, memory support apartments, long-term nursing care and rehabilitation.
Bob Bryant, Senior Vice President of Lifelong Health for Riverside, shared plans at the ribbon-cutting to implement the household model at each of Riverside's facilities in the future.
"Our plans are to evolve all our communities to this model. All of us thrive best in an environment that is familiar, that is normal, and that is the way we've always lived," he explained.
"Household life is spontaneous and full of new experiences. But above all, the household concept recognizes and fosters those values that every human needs and cherishes—dignity, respect, love, and privacy."