PACE: Program helps seniors stay in their homes

Elderly residents interested in getting help – and not going to a nursing home or other care facility – now have a new program to assist them in the Quad Cities. The UnityPoint Health PACE Senior Care Bettendorf center, operated by UnityPoint Clinic, will begin seeing participants on Sept. 1. The center is located  2119 […]

Elderly residents interested in getting help – and not going to a nursing home or other care facility – now have a new program to assist them in the Quad Cities. The UnityPoint Health PACE Senior Care Bettendorf center, operated by UnityPoint Clinic, will begin seeing participants on Sept. 1. The center is located  2119 Kimberly Road in Bettendorf, in part of the building that was once home to Hobby Lobby. (The facility is located on the building’s south end. The Lynco Products Bettendorf Distribution Center occupies the other part of the renovated building.)

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Our Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) will offer a wide variety of primary care, therapy, meals, recreation, socialization and personal care services that will help participants live as independently as possible, said Lori Bahen, director of operations at the UnityPoint Health PACE Senior Care center.  PACE’s top goal is to help keep people in their homes instead of them being forced to live in a care facility to get help, she said.  “We’re very excited about this. We have a great team here and this is needed,” Ms. Bahen said Thursday afternoon, Aug. 8, during a Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center. “Thank you for your continued involvement in our community,” Bettendorf Mayor Bob Gallagher said during the ceremony. More than 50 business and community leaders helped welcome the new center and got to learn more about the PACE program and the renovated facility on Kimberly. The new facility occupies the south end of the building, which was once home to former Ross College-Quad Cities and Brown Mackie College. Spanning about 20,000 square feet, the facility now has a wide variety of exam and treatment rooms, a physical therapy room, a large meeting room, showers, laundry and much more.  But PACE will offer more than medical care. With a fleet of 11 vans, it can provide transportation for seniors to get to and from doctors’ appointments and even shopping trips. It has laundry facilities to wash clothes and will offer plenty of chances for people to gather and socialize. The PACE facility also is decorated with many uplifting quotes on the walls around the offices. One of those is: “We are a community of caring.” “PACE provides a holistic approach to healthcare for eligible seniors. In addition to on-site primary and specialty care, PACE offers an extensive list of services including transportation to and from our facility, medical equipment, meals, and a variety of therapy services,” said Matt Swanstrom, executive director of UnityPoint Health PACE Senior Care, in a news release. “This coordinated care helps seniors live at home for as long as safely possible.” UnityPoint Health PACE Senior Care - Bettendorf is a service area expansion of UnityPoint Clinic’s Siouxland PACE in Sioux City, Iowa. The local PACE facility currently has about 12 staff members, but that number is expected to quickly rise to about 70 once it begins serving participants in the program. The local program can help up to 250 people at a time. “We want to help people who have fallen through the cracks. … There’s definitely a need for this program here,” said Ty Montoya, a community liaison for UnityPoint Health, who was giving tours of the PACE facility to visitors on Thursday. She added that local PACE officials expect to be serving that maximum number of 250 people  in a year or two. As a federal and state-funded program, PACE participants must meet certain medical and financial eligibility requirements. Individuals eligible for PACE must:

• Be 55 years or older.
• Live in Clinton, Muscatine, or Scott counties in Iowa.
• Meet Iowa’s criteria for nursing facility level of care.
• Be able to live safely at home.

For more information on the Quad Cities site, and to make a referral, call (563) 346-5000. While this is the first PACE facility in the region, the program has been in other states for years. There are 171 PACE organizations operating in 33 states and the District of Columbia. More than 300 PACE centers serve over 77,000 participants across the country, according to the National PACE Association, a professional network of PACE providers. “I think a lot of people were asking, ‘Are nursing homes our only option?’ They started looking around and discovered the PACE program made a lot of sense,” said Robert Greenwood, senior vice president for communications and member engagement at the National PACE Association, in a news release. Other Iowa communities also think PACE makes sense. UnityPoint is expected to expand PACE to Cedar Rapids and Waterloo in the next six months, said Ms. Bahen. “We want people to feel at home in this place,” she added.