New BIF Project: Introducing the Nursing Home of the Future

In case you missed it, the Business Innovation Factory is partnering with the Tockwotton Home, Quality Partners of Rhode Island and the MIT AgeLab to create a real-world laboratory for developing and testing new solutions, products and models for improving elderly care. Leveraging the BIF Experience Lab platform, the "Nursing Home of the Future" will create a platform for innovators and industry partners to transform current approaches to elderly care in assisted living and nursing care facilities.

We're thrilled about this new laboratory because its outcomes will provide a roadmap for redesigning the next generation of elderly care solutions. It will also help companies and care providers deliver better value to our burgeoning elderly population.

For this effort, the partnership team engages residents and staff at Tockwotton Home, a 30-bed assisted living center and 42-bed skilled nursing home located in Providence, Rhode Island. Tockwotton Home also plans to open a new 150-bed facility in 2010 in which they will dedicate a patient unit and common living areas to the Nursing Home of the Future initiative..

Also central to the partnership is the leadership and expertise of Quality Partners of Rhode Island (QPRI). QPRI carries the Medicare and Medicaid designation as the National Nursing Home Quality Improvement Organization Support Center since 2002. In this role, QPRI serves as a national leader and center of excellence in nursing homequality and provides clinical support and quality improvement materials to Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) throughout the United States.

Partners are now recruiting Phase 1 sponsors and mobilizing the initiative. Phase 1 activities will begin with a comprehensive analysis and mapping of the current experience of nursing home and assisted-living residents, an analysis of unmet needs in current care models, the identification and prioritization of an initial set of target opportunities, the architectural design of the patient unit in the new home, and ongoing stakeholder engagement and communication efforts.

Spearheading Phase I is industrial design expert and BIF Experience Labs Director Mickey Ackerman who has this to say: “The Nursing Home of the Future allows us to capture the experiences of residents as they move through daily life. In this environment we can construct a more accurate picture of how residents interact with the facility and staff, utilize private and shared spaces, make use of equipment and furnishings, access medical care and engage in recreational activities. This method of real-time intervention and direct end-user engagement enables us to quickly and cost effectively develop and test new ideas, products and systems while simultaneously determining if a novel solution will work in a real-world environment. You simply cannot do this in a corporate or academic research lab or classroom.”

Learn more and stay-tuned for future updates at project headquarters.

Posted April 11, 2008 12:18 PM by Melissa Withers | Permalink