Our friends at Hooker De Jong Architects in Muskegon, MI asked us to get involved with this unique health care project in 2010. Now in 2013, we are working through the management of furnishing purchases and FFE receipts to fulfill the requirements of the staged openings of the new facility.
Meadow Brook had a vision to create a residential care facility that organizes around smaller household groups verses the more clinical “halls” and “floors” of the traditional mode. This is best described by excerpts from the Antrium Review posting on the Meadow Brook web page, as seen below.
Posted: Thursday, January 26, 2012 3:00 am Antrium Review
A series of articles regarding nursing homes in Michigan that ran in the Detroit Free Press in mid-December reported some good news for Meadow Brook Director, Marna Robertson, and her hard working staff. …a recent evaluation by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (reported) …Meadow Brook was ranked within the top ten percent among the state’s 428 licensed nursing home facilities.
…None of this comes as a surprise to most of the people who have witnessed first-hand the care a family member has received at Meadow Brook.
That care can only continue to get even better with the culture change planned for Meadow Brook that will create what Robertson characterizes as “person centered care,” designed to put residents at the center of decision making in a more home-like environment. While that concept has already begun with simple things like extended meal times and a wider variety of food selection, the concept will only be fully implemented with the completion of planned construction of a new three story building and renovation of existing facilities that will house residents in private rooms clustered in small household units that will give them the privacy they desire while providing the opportunity for the social interaction they need.
At the time this was especially important to David Layman, President of Hooker De Jong, who had just gone through the process of trying to select housing for his mother and came away from the experience stunned that there wasn’t more hospitable and residential options in senior care. “Why can’t it feel like home?” he insisted.
r.o.i. Design agreed with that sentiment and began the work of making Meadow Brook a place for seven households each with either The European Bungalow and the Vintage Farmhouse or Woodland Cottage Theme. “That meant three groups of selections, three groups of finishes and furnishings” reported lead designer Mary Jane Caster. “It looks great on paper, we can’t wait to see it come to life”.
The phased openings begin April 2013 with the new three story addition and then over the next three years the remodeled existing portion of the home will be completed.