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Editorial Advertising General Information |
| Company provides seniors with resources for better living By Ofelia Saenz, Signal Tribune staff writer 
As seniors move into their golden years, many are opting to work with geriatric care management teams to help them live better lives. Machelle Thompson of Senior Solutions Team, Inc. has the same vision. Senior Solutions offers a "one-stop-shop" of services for seniors and their families. Whether a client needs a referral to a geriatric physician, coordination of caregiver services or a handyman, they coordinate and oversee all the services. Thompson, a physical therapist and licensed nursing home administrator, has been in the healthcare industry for over 20 years. She and her team are experienced and passionate about serving the needs of seniors in the community. "Our goal is to keep seniors as independent as possible, in the safest environment possible," says Thompson. After an initial comprehensive assessment by a team of care managers, which consists of registered nurses, physical therapists and social workers, the team makes recommendations in the client's plan of care. Although many of Senior Solution's clients are short-term hospital patients who would like to make a safe transition back home, Thompson points out that many hospitalizations could be averted altogether through proper precautionary measures. "Ideally, we'd like to intervene with a senior before they have a critical event," says Thompson. "A lot of the people that we serve are people who have chronic diseases, [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] or congestive heart failure, and they have frequent hospitalizations because their chronic disease process is not being managed effectively. Usually, that is due to nutrition and general oversight of medications. We try to prevent the repeated hospitalizations that could be avoidable if they had the appropriate intervention." What sets Senior Solutions apart from other companies that offer similar services, according to Thompson, is that although they employ a rigorous screening process with their reserve of referrals, they do not provide the actual caregivers. "We simply identify [whether] the person needs the service, we help them get the service, [then] make sure their resources are used in a judicious way and that no one is getting taken advantage of." Senior Solutions also has a built-in system of checks and balances to make sure the senior is being advocated for appropriately. On a quarterly basis, the team meets with a quality assurance board made up of two physicians, an elder care attorney and two citizens from the community who have no affiliation with the company. The board reviews each case individually to scrutinize the team's assessments and recommendations and to assure that the right measures are being taken for the right reasons. Although Senior Solution's services are primarily funded through private pay, Thompson points out that the current wave in health care is for geriatric care management in alternative settings other than hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. "It's more community based," says Thompson. "Right now Medicare is doing a three year pilot study. Basically they're utilizing this same model. Their team has a physician and ancillary services beneath that. They're taking the sickest 2 to 3 percent of the elderly population and having a physician see them in their home. They have [someone] oversee care management to try to prevent hospitalizations that can be managed at home." "[As Medicare moves] in this direction, our goal is to get positioned as a quality provider of these services and be able to contract with them when that door opens." Senior Solutions Team Inc. is located at 3736 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 1. To contact them, call (562) 283-0469,or visit their web page at www.seniorsolutionsteaminc.com. |