Aging in Place Project


The Aging in Place Project

Assuring Quality At-Home Services for Seniors

Background & Goal

Many senior citizens and their families seek to postpone or avoid nursing home care, preferring to remain at home.

The Aging in Place Project, through RN Care Coordination, health promotion, and early illness recognition, aims to provide more and higher-quality services at home, allowing people to “age in place” and avoid or delay hospitalizations by creating Sinclair Home Care.

Center Description

Sinclair Home Care is a licensed home care agency within the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing that currently provides community-based care to residents of Tiger Place to support the aging in place program. Based on individual choice and autonomy, both the building and the services maximize each elder person’s mental, physical, and psychosocial strengths. Specific services that integrate mind and body are: a country club dining experience for meals; a sports bar; private completely accessible apartments with screened porches; an on-site veterinary clinic, doors to the outside from each apartment with safe walking paths for personal pets; and health promotion and wellness programs with registered nurse care coordination and 24-hour nurse response on call. The combined housing and care cost for any resident has never approached or exceeded the national average cost for nursing home care.

More Information

Marilyn Rantz, PhD, RN, FAAN

S406 MU Sinclair School of Nursing
University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, MO 65221
rantzm@missouri.edu
www.agingmo.com

One Page Summary

Evidence of Success

Sinclair Home Care (in operation since 1999)

  • Has produced significantly better outcomes of pain, shortness of breath, and ADLs through AIP nurse care coordination for several hundred elders living in the community.
  • Provided, through RN care coordination, $482.85 per month savings to the total Medicare and Medicaid costs of health care when compared to home and community-based services during a CMS-funded evaluation (1999-2003). Total Medicare and Medicaid costs were $1,591 lower per month than in a comparison nursing home group.
  • Has provided more than 700 nursing students with clinical experiences, as well as experiences for many engineering, communication, business, PT, SW, and medical students.

Tiger Place (in operation since 2004)

  • Facilitates development and evaluation of technology in a collaborative setting. Living with sensor technology increases length of stay an average of 1.7 years.
  • Has reduced hospitalizations, sustained outcomes of maintaining mobility and independence, early illness recognition, involvement in life and community activities, and successful hospice care for those at end of life.
  • Costs for any at Tiger Place nursing home eligible participant has never approached or exceeded nursing home care. In a four year analysis (2009-2012) the average annual cost for those nursing home eligible was $20,000 less per year than nursing home care.
  • RN Care Coordination nearly doubles length of stay (2.6 years) as compared to the national median of 1.8 years in residential senior housing.