The state Health Services Council last week unanimously approved a $44 million plan to move and dramatically expand the Tockwotton Home and a $7.3 million plan to build a new inpatient unit for Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island.
Both projects still require the official approval of Dr. David R. Gifford, director of the R.I. Department of Health, who generally follows the council’s recommendation.
The Tockwotton Home, which for 151 years has been in Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood, plans to break ground next April on a new, 126,000-square-foot facility on the East Providence waterfront – nearly three times the size of its current 45,000-square-foot building.
Tockwotton Home’s assisted living unit will increase to 66 beds from 24; its nursing care unit will increase to 52 beds from 42; and the new facility also will add 30 beds of dementia assisted living.
Scheduled to open in late 2009, the facility will be located just north of Bold Point on the Seekonk River, on slightly more than 11 acres of land that Tockwotton Home purchased in 2004. Tockwotton Home will develop six acres for the building and parking, and plans to sell four acres for commercial development and donate the remaining property on the river to the City of East Providence for use as a park, said Kevin McKay, the executive director.
Tockwotton Home received unanimous approval from the East Providence Waterfront Commission to move ahead with its project last October, but it needs to go before the commission again because of a slight change in the development plan. McKay said he expects final approval from the commission by the end of the month.
The other major project approved by the Health Services Council last Tuesday involves relocating Home & Hospice Care’s Philip Hulitar Inpatient Center from its current facility at Elmhurst Extended Care to a new site on North Main Street in Providence, more than doubling its capacity from 10 to 24 beds. The project is expected to cost about $7.3 million.
Demolition will begin in several weeks in the vacant, 50,000-square-foot building at 1085 North Main St., which once housed the Summit Nursing Home. HHCRI purchased the building out of receivership last summer, said Analee Wulfkuhle, president and CEO of HHCRI.
The building, which will be renovated as a LEED-certified green facility, will house HHCRI’s administrative offices, its inpatient facility and also a community space when it opens next summer, Wulfkuhle said.
Both projects involve not just expansions, but also efforts to provide more patient-centered care in home-style environments.
Tockwotton Home’s new facility will be divided into three “households,” each with its own front door, kitchen and dining area, housing 17 or 18 residents who will have their own bedroom, bathroom and private rooms. Each household also will have staff consistently assigned to work with the same residents each day, creating a strong bond between residents and their caregivers, McKay said. Nursing stations will be eliminated, making the facility very home-like, he said.
“This is a whole new model for nursing,” he said. “It’s going to be the first home in the state built from scratch to support the philosophy of care of culture change.”
The new HHCRI facility will be a national model for urban hospice care, offering best practices in a field devoted to providing a hospital alternative to dying patients, Wulfkuhle said. HHCRI’s inpatient center was revolutionary when it was launched in 1993, but has become inadequate to meet the strong demand for hospice care in the state, she said.
“It grows out of a need that’s unmet within the Rhode Island communities,” Wulfkuhle said. “We have been in a 10-bed unit for about 13 years. We have a waiting list that is often three, four, five, six people long, and we know that we could serve even more people.”
