Late this year or early next year, Saint Francis Healthcare of Wilmington, Del., plans to open Delaware's only Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly. Saint Francis has been renovating and outfitting the PACE site to include a clinic, exercise rooms, a dayroom, administrative space and a chapel.
Saint Francis Living Independently for Elders' service constellation will include social work, health care, physical and occupational therapy and spiritual care. The goal of the PACE model is to enable frail elderly people to live safely at home as they receive services in the community. Initially Saint Francis LIFE will have the capacity to serve up to 240 elderly people.
Julie Hester, Saint Francis president and chief executive, said data indicates that about 2,300 people in New Castle County, Del., may qualify for PACE services. And that number is expected to grow, since Delaware is considered a retiree-friendly state, and experts expect that its elderly population will increase even more rapidly than that of other states.
Saint Francis, which is anchored by Saint Francis Hospital, Delaware's only Catholic hospital, includes a long-term care facility and a home care program. Hester said the health system will draw upon its own expertise in serving older adults as well as that of its parent company, Catholic Health East, in operating the PACE program.
CHE is investing $3 million of the approximately $4.5 million it will cost to renovate and outfit the Saint Francis LIFE center. PACE serves many clients who are eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, by virtue of poverty and age or disability. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, dual eligible individuals are among the sickest and poorest people in both the Medicare and Medicaid insurance pools.
Copyright © 2012 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
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