Los Angeles Jewish Home

After 15 years as CEO-President of the Jewish Home, Molly Forrest reflects on the Home's achievements, financial challenges, and future.


Looking back, what stands out as the most notable achievements for the Home?
The expansion of the Home's capacity to help more seniors — both in-residence and through our community-based services — has been a significant accomplishment.

In 2002, we opened our award-winning Goldenberg•Ziman Special Care Center, to treat seniors with dementia. In 2007, the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center opened, offering a 10-bed acute geriatric psychiatric hospital and 239 skilled nursing beds. Last years, Fountainview at Eisenberg Village, featuring luxury living for independent seniors, opened.

The Home also developed a number of community-based programs. These include Skirball Hospice, the Jewish Home Center for Palliative Medicine and short-term rehabilitative care for seniors. In total, last year the Jewish Home helped over 2,300 seniors, either on our campuses or in their own homes.

Opened in 2007, the Annenberg School of Nursing has prepared almost 60 vocational nursing students to start new nursing careers.

What have been your greatest challenges as you led the Home to expand services and build new facilities?
With a population of 600,000, the Los Angeles Jewish community has the smallest capacity for seniors of any Jewish Home in the nation on a per-capita basis. The senior population grows daily, with Baby Boomers swelling the numbers. And, thanks to benefits of modern medicine, we enjoy longer life spans and have more "super elderly" (85+), many with complicated medical or social needs.

Adequate funding to maintain our quality programs and services has been, and remains, a challenge. 70% of our residents are on government assistance or welfare. The proposed Federal and State cutbacks in Medicare and Medi-Cal will impact us. In particular, the recently passed California budget will reduce our welfare payments by about $3-3.5 million.

Our "greatest challenge" becomes how we can expand responsibly, and serve more seniors with less reliance upon governmental support for long-term care?

How is the Home responding to these financial pressures?
Our mission — to provide excellence in senior healthcare reflective of Jewish values — is our cornerstone.

The cutbacks and limitations in benefits for seniors have hurt. We have implemented difficult changes. We re-assigned staff, reconfigured positions and, unfortunately, laid off about 20 from the 1,100 staff we employ. We also renegotiated contracts and continue to spend money prudently.

With careful planning and support from our wonderful board and valued friends, we continue providing exceptional senior care and have grown to serve more, while reducing reliance on governmental funding.

What does the future hold for the Jewish Home?
Next year, as we celebrate our Centennial, we will open the first site for the Brandman Centers for Senior Care (BCSC). This is a new program that combines Medicare and Medi-Cal benefits to assure needy seniors can live safely at home with coordinated, quality healthcare and services.

We have plans for the Gonda Health Aging Westside campus, as well as new projects for the Grancell Village and Hirsch Family campuses in the Valley. We are also planning for an in-home concierge program focused on helping seniors live in their own homes.

Once all our plans are completed, our Home will serve 5,000 seniors every day! It is up to us to meet the needs of an aging population with careful foresight, management and, yes, the ongoing generosity of hands, hearts, and dollars.

Labels: Achievements, Funding, Future, Jewish Home News, Los Angeles Jewish Home, Molly Forrest, Palliative Medicine, Q and A, Seniors, Super Elderly

The Los Angeles Jewish Home is celebrating a very special birthday today! Shirley Strozenberg, our oldest resident, just turned 108. Yes, she is older than the Home itself.


Originally from Poland, Shirley is a long-time resident of Los Angeles, and recently moved into the Joyce Eisenberg-Keefer Medical Center. 


Over the last 99 years, the Jewish Home has become world renowned for its quality of senior care. Our residents' average age is 90, and we're home to 31 centenarians. This is a testament to the Home's philosophy of caring for the whole person—body, mind, and spirit.

Labels: Aging, Around the Home, Birthday, Centenarian, Healthy Aging, Jewish Home, Oldest Resident, Poland, Remarkable Residents, Senior Care, Senior Living, Seniors, Staff, Strozenberg, Super Elderly

"Want to live to 100?" asks Jewish Home resident Edna Shankman, 95. "Choose your parents carefully!"

While it doesn't hurt to have family members who are living to 90-plus (or to have a great sense of humor), over a decade of research reveals that healthy lifestyle choices are the prime factor in determining who will be winners in the ultimate lottery.

The longest lived among us, the 'super-elderly,' are still a unique group. They evoke curiosity, fascination and even national pride. Everyone is eager to learn their strategies for successful living. (Wikipedia maintains an entire page about the world's oldest people that is updated daily.) Ask almost anyone if they would like to join this exclusive club, and you'll probably get the same answer: "Yes, if a high quality of life can be maintained."

The good news is that it can, and that more and more of us will become members of the "100+ Club" in the decades to come.

More Good News

Research shows that, where longevity is concerned, most of us are in the driver's seat. That's because lifestyle choices, in combination with genetics, are the dominant factors in how long each of us will live.

A healthy diet is a vital component, especially one with an abundance of antioxidants like those contained in certain fruits, vegetables, and even red wines. But it turns out that there is an even more significant predictor.

"Exercise trumps everything," says Dr. Edward L. Schneider of USC's Andrus Gerontology Center. It's so important that it even beats weight control. "If you're overweight and exercise," Dr. Schneider says, "you'll probably live longer than someone who isn't overweight and doesn't exercise."

Daily doses of moderately strenuous exercise (like power walking) are the foundation of cardiovascular health and one path to a long and meaningful life. But no one lives long through exercise alone. Holistic wellness – in body, mind, and spirit – makes a vital contribution to every proven strategy for successful aging.

Top Recommendations of the Experts

Social Inclusion
There is nothing so important to our well-being as a sense of belonging. Studies of five areas around the world where people are extraordinarily long-lived found that seniors remained a vital part of the family dynamic and traditions. The equation is simple: when we are valued, we thrive.

Belief System
The practice of faith is valuable in many contexts. Faith can be cherished as a personal relationship with G-d. It can provide the philosophical underpinnings of our values and belief structure. It is also a supreme example of the all-important sense and practice of belonging – to a tradition, a worldview, and a people.

Socializing
Daily interaction – whether in the course of work or volunteering, at mealtimes, on the phone with friends and family, or through social networking – provides stimulation for the mind and spirit. Studies show that it is rare to live a long and satisfying life without it.

Attitude
Finally, a positive attitude helps make positive things happen, whether it's exercise, inclusion, social success or practicing your faith. Most importantly, optimism is one way – our best way – of saying yes to life.

What Jewish Home Residents Say

At the Jewish Home, the average age is 90, with twenty-eight residents age 100 or older, and sixteen 99-year-olds poised to hit the century mark this year. Jewish Home residents also live, on average, two to three times longer than seniors at typical residential facilities.

Talk to some of the Jewish Home's super-elderly for advice, and you get a sense of just how important a great attitude is to successful aging and a long life.

"Start each day with a smile and stay interested in everything around you," advises Eli Persky, 93. "Watch a movie, play sudoku, keep your mind active and engaged!"

"I have to stick around!" says Claire Bizar, who is 102. "Why? Because my family wants me to. Love is what keeps me going."

Morris Steinberg, 97, swears by his daily regimen of walking, weight training, and T'ai Chi. "Working out keeps me going and helps my brain."

Edna Shankman, 99, who chose her parents so carefully, emphasizes the importance of the positive attitude. "I used to be a worrier," she says, and reminds us, "But you have to learn to go with the flow." These days, she only worries about the important stuff. Like what? "Like what to wear!"

Kathleen Doheny is a Los Angeles-based journalist who also writes for WebMD.com, healthday.com, Weight Watchers, the Los Angeles Times and other publications.

Labels: Aging, Doheny, Feature Articles, Longevity, Super Elderly