Los Angeles Jewish Home

The Brandman Centers for Senior Care (BCSC), our new Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) facility, received some tremendous news coverage over the last couple weeks. Both of the LA local news teams from NBC and ABC visited us, and their reports are terrific!

Since BCSC is one of the only PACE centers in the Greater Los Angeles Area, and the only one in the San Fernando Valley, the kind of care we offer seniors—allowing them to access nursing home-quality care while living in their own homes—is incredibly unique.

Check out the videos below!

NBC News:

The first ABC News story:

The second ABC News story:

Labels: ABC News, BCSC, Brandman Centers for Senior Care, NBC News, PACE, Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, Senior Care, Senior Healthcare

The Brandman Centers for Senior Care was featured in today's issue of the Spanish language paper, La Opinión, in an article by Yurina Melara Valiulis. We thought the story was so great, it had to be translated for our English readers!

A new comprehensive care program allows Alice and Miguel Reyes both 84 years of age, to remain in their home in Canoga Park despite various health problems.

This program for the elderly is located in the complex called Los Angeles Jewish Home. Brandman Centers for Senior Care/PACE started on February 1 and although it has capacity for 150 people, so far only eight have signed up.

Alicia has diabetes and takes many pills for different ailments. Miguel has constant pain in one leg and acute pain which hinders him every time he moves, also suffers from high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Because of their age, they could be candidates to be transferred to a nursing home, but thanks to the Brandman Centers for Senior Care program called PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly), this couple may live longer independently.

PACE is a model of care for the elderly, which provides a full range of medical services - including primary care, specialists, testing laboratory, podiatry, dental, psychiatry, psychology, therapy, nutritional counseling, social workers, food planning services and transportation to the Center.

"We come to the Center twice a week. Here they treat us well, they give us therapy to keep us active and they also worry about our food,” said Miguel.

Gretchen Brickson, Executive Director of the Center, explained that this program is open to all adults over 55 years of age that start having problems and can’t take care of them, but that can be kept at home with help.

Nationwide there are 90 PACE programs, six of them in California. There are two in Los Angeles County; Altamed and now Brandman.

Victoria Solórzano, specialist in connection with the community of Brandman, said that Latinos should provide the opportunity to their parents or their grandparents to enroll in a program that helps them control their diseases and to feel better.

For seniors with Medicare and Medi-Cal, PACE is free of charge and to be accepted they must pass an inspection that evaluates fitness and mobility, as well as live in the service area of Brandman. Communities that qualify are: Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Encino, Granada Hills, Mission Hills, North Hills, Northridge, Panorama City, Porter Ranch, Reseda, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Tarzana, Valley Village, Van Nuys, West Hills, Winnetka and Woodland Hills.

(Click here to view the original story in Spanish)
Photo Credit: J. Emilio Flores, La Opinión

Labels: Alicia Reyes, BCSC, Brandman Centers for Senior Care, La Opinion, La Opinión, Medi-Cal, Medicare, Miguel Reyes, PACE, Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, Yurina Melara Valiulis

Originally reported in the Los Angeles Times on September 10, 2012 by Martha Groves.

The Los Angeles Jewish Home, a leading provider of senior housing in the L.A. area, has bought 2.5 acres at Playa Vista and plans to establish its first Westside facility, officials said Saturday.

Plans call for developing a senior care community that would become the hub for a network of related services.

Now in its centennial year, the Jewish Home opened in 1912 in Boyle Heights to give shelter to five residents. For the next few decades, Boyle Heights -- named for Andrew Boyle, an Irish immigrant -- served as the hub of Jewish life in the area.

In 1975, the home followed the Jewish migration to the San Fernando Valley, selling its Eastside home to Japanese American interests that created what is now Keiro Senior HealthCare.

The Jewish Home's two campuses in Reseda now serve about 2,600 elderly clients each year, including about 1,000 residents and 1,600 clients of clinics and other programs.

Most of the residents are people dependent on government assistance, said Bonnie Polishuk, marketing manager. Residents' average age is 90, a figure that has skyrocketed over the years from about 60 when the home first opened, she said.

"Our average age is older than the general population in U.S. nursing homes," Polishuk said.

Jewish Home officials said the push into the Westside was in part a response to pent-up demand. Of 400 people on the home's waiting list, half live on the Westside. The average waiting time is 18 months.

Plans call for developing services for elderly care in the Village at Playa Vista, an as-yet uncompleted portion of the Playa Vista development south of Marina del Rey.

The new facility is expected to serve an additional 500 seniors a year.

Being Jewish is not a requirement for residency.

Among those that have donated funds to create the Playa Vista facility are the Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Foundation and the Saul Brandman Foundation.

Labels: Brandman, CCRC, Continuing Care Retirement Community, Gonda Healthy Aging Westside Campus, Los Angeles Times, PACE, Playa Vista, Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, Senior Care, Westside