October 6, 2025 • 20 mins
We spoke with David Skoczulek, Vice President of Business Development and Communications, about the innovation and clinical programs offered at iCare Health Network, a skilled nursing and long-term care provider.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest this morning is David Scosleck. He is vice president
of business development and Communications with I Care Health Network
and touch Points Rehab.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, good morning, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
My pleasure. For those who don't know about I Care
Health Network, what do you do? Let's talk about your mission,
the types of care you provide. We could probably be here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
For hours, we could, yes, So we are a skilled
nursing provider, long term care provider here in Connecticut. We're
based in Manchester. We just passed our twenty fifth anniversary
last year, so I've been in operation for a long time,
providing care to residents now in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
We say our mission is enriching the lives of the
residents we serve, and we tend to care for a
(00:45):
wide range of different individuals, but those that have complex
and challenging medical conditions, and we have a lot of
specialty services that we provide to tailor our care to
those special needs that they may have.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Congratulations on your mouth stone, thank twenty five years, very impressive.
How many facilities do you operate?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We have ten here in Connecticut, mostly in Greater Hartford.
Our southernmost is in Meriden, out to the Manchester area
and up into East Windsor, and then we also have
a facility in Holyoake, Massachusetts, and one in Bennington, Vermont,
so twelve total.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I love Bennington, Vermont. I go to a little bed
and breakfast there. I'm getting off topic. It's the Shire.
It's really lovely.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's a great little town. They've been very good to
us and we've kind of just integrated into the community there.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Wonderful. Let's talk about the specialized clinical programs that you offer.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, we have a very wide range of them. It
probably would take a while to go through all of them.
Some of our major programs we do have a substance
used treatment program delivered inside of long term care that
we call I Recovery, which is obviously a big need
till these days. We provide behavioral health care in the
long term care settings, so these are folks that are
residing with us over the long term but have a
(01:59):
behavioral health DIYKE that needs treatment as well. And then
we have a whole host of different programs that are
in each of our care centers. They all have some specialty.
The newest one that we are operating now is an
on site dialysis unit at Westside Care Center in Manchester,
so residents of the facility are able to receive their
dialysis in the facility instead of going out to an
(02:20):
outpatient center and having to transport and all of the
sort of frustrations and challenges that go with going out
three times a week for multiple hours. Now they can
do that all in house. We're going to be opening
a second center of that type at Parkville Care Center
in Hartford. We also have a Huntington's disease care program
in Fresh River and East Windsor, the only one of
its kind in the state, which is a very poor
(02:45):
prognosis disease process. So essentially it needs a lot of
wrap around services, a lot of care, and again we're
the only ones providing that level of care here in Connecticut,
so we get referrals from action from all over the
region for that service. We have an HIV program at
Trinity Hill and Harford, one of two in the state.
You know, many nursing home providers can care for HIV
(03:06):
and AIDS. That's obviously it's a longstanding care program. You know,
in a lot of different areas, but we have additional
services that we're able to bring in through Ryan White
Funds and through community relationships with different providers to make
sure we're doing wrap around services and all that type
of thing. And then we're also an American Heart Association
accredited Heart failure provider at touch Points at Bloomfield in
(03:28):
Bloomfield obviously, so we opened a couple of private, renovated
heart failure suites there. We have a complex care team
that follows our heart failure residents. We communicate very closely
with the local hospitals, the local cardiologists to make sure
that the care is integrated, that the stays are you know,
the right length, and that they're not you know, folks
(03:50):
aren't readmitting to the hospital, so they're receiving their care
in place by an expert team. You know. Beyond that,
every like like I mentioned, every center has some specialty
or other. We're also a VA provider at Silver Springs
Care Center in Meriden, so we receive referrals from all
of the state. But for folks who are veterans that
are using their VA benefit, those are you know, obviously,
(04:12):
you want to make sure we're honoring our veterans and
providing expert care there too, So that does a long
standing relationship with the VA that does very well.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Whoever hired you was smart. You do a very good job.
You're very thorough and you know everything what's going on.
That's a blessing, No, thank you, appreciate it. They're blessed
to have you. Let's go back for a minute. They
call it the dialysis done. It's so important for people
to not have to go elsewhere. So tell me a
little bit more about the dialysis done. That's what you
refer to it as.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Absolutely so, we're the first in the state, slash the
second in the state to have this model. And I
say that because there's one other that started as outpatient
and became a model that's called the dialysis den So
essentially it's in home dialysis model, but it's provided in
the same kind of format as outpatient. So when folks
(05:00):
are picturing it, it is six chairs of dialysis, looks
exactly like you would see in an outpatient dialysis center
if you've been in one, and it hasn't a dialysis
nurse and a dialysis technician in the center at all times.
So really the home model of it is really kind
of not applicable for the actual resident other than the
fact that the nursing home is their home. So it's
(05:22):
kind of a long way of saying it's it's basically
they're going to an outpatient type setting, but it's just
downstairs from where their room is. So instead of getting
into a wheelchair, van, a cab, an ambulance, a family
member's car and driving however long to the outpatient center
in whatever weather they're facing and whatever kind of medical
issues or exhaustion or whatever else is going on in
(05:43):
their lives, they can just come down in their wheelchair
or walk down with staff, receive their dialysis right there
inside the building, and then return to the rest of
their day. And so it's a lot more integrated. The
staff gets the opportunity to really know them well, which
helps with them, you know, making sure they actually make
it to their appointments and don't decline because of all
(06:05):
those other reasons, making sure that if there is a
change in their condition, everybody is aware of what their
baseline is and what their needs are. So it's very
much an integrated and coordinated model. It's probably where the
rest of the you know, the state and the country
are going to go because there's so many nursing home
residents receiving dialysis, they might as well get it right
there in their own facility. So the partnership is with
(06:27):
Divita Dialysis, probably the best well known dialysis provider in
the country. And like I said, we're going from six
chairs at Westside to adding another six chairs at Parkville
Care Center in Hartford, And when you go to full
capacity with those two, that means we could be caring
for up to seventy two residents on dialysis. So it's
a big impact to the area. Again, a kind of
(06:48):
a leap forward and care. So we're very excited about it.
It's been mostly my project, so you know, personally excited
about it as well.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I love this so much because if you know anyone
who's ever gone through diet analysis, especially at a nursing home,
you know, waiting for that ambulance, all of the things
that you were saying earlier to take them over to dialysis. Wow,
this is just amazing. You also talked about the heart
failure suites. Let's talk a little bit more about what
those consist of.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Sure, So, heart failure is a very common condition in
nursing homes, because it generally becomes what we say, more
of refractory or more difficult to manage and care for
in certain populations. And there's a lot of again technical
but co morbidities that go with that, so there's generally
other respiratory diseases or something else alongside of it. So
it needs an intense level of care, and we are
(07:37):
able to provide that care both from the aspect of
having these relationships with the local health systems and hospitals,
their cardiology teams and their heart failure teams, but also
the fact that we can have our own complex care
nurse that's following their daily weights, their lab values, all
these things that are inputs into their success with their
(07:57):
heart failure. And then beyond that, we actually have some
special permissions from the state where you show your competencies
and caring for this and they give you special permission
to administer medications that aren't available to every nursing home
as well. So we're able to sort of add all
these pieces to the puzzle to make sure that again
residents are not going out to the hospital for their
(08:18):
care or readmitting or kind of back and forth to
the er. They're staying in place they're receiving the care
they need, they're getting back on their feet, and they're
going home generally. And now we're able to do that
with a third party accreditation. So you know, everyone kind
of knows who the American Heart Association is. They know
that that's a very strong endorsement to have a certification
(08:38):
from them. So we've obtained that this year, which we're
one of only a few in the state to have that.
And then we figured, you know, we should have special
areas in the short term care unit where these folks
could reside. So we have two private rooms, but we
have a number of other rooms that are attributed to
those with heart failure, give them some extra space, you know,
(09:00):
ad amenities to make it you know, homelike and comfortable
and also, you know, be able to have all the components,
the relationships, the clinical care and the environment to really
be comfortable.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
If you've known anyone who's had heart failure or any
kind of heart disease, this is so special for them.
It sounds like one stop shopping at I Care. It
sounds like you just have everything for anybody, any kind
of need. It's absolutely wonderful. Tell me what kind of
feedback have you received from the patients or from their
families about all his services and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's a big difference maker. I mean, it's it's I mean,
we're honest, We're upfront. No one looks to reside in
a nursing home. They're not. No one has ever said
in their life that they're looking forward to living or
receiving care in a nursing home. So the goal is
really to make it as homelike as possible, make the
outcomes as good as possible, make sure that the care
is you know, the integrity the care is there, and
(09:52):
make sure that you can you know, when their goal
is short term rehab, that you're able to get them
home as quickly and as safely as po possible. And
you know, you do see people that come back because
they need care again. I mean, that's the nature of it.
And that's the best endorsement I think we can have,
is that when they get in a situation with their
care needs that they need this level of care again,
(10:13):
they think of us. That's the gold standard for us.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Absolutely, you've recently received grant funding.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We did the actual the dialysis units were partially or
mostly grant funded from the state the sentiment from the
state and was that they wanted to have specialty units
inside of nursing facilities. I obviously don't want to speak
for them, but I know that was the goal, was
to be able to get specialized care as close to
nursing home residents as possible through these specialized units and
(10:43):
put out, you know, a grant process, which we were
awarded on the dialysis side, but we were also for
that Huntington's program at fresh River that I mentioned, so
we're the only provider again who is doing this in
the state. It's a very you know, poor prognosis as
I mentioned, which means that you know, you have to
be able to care for the resident but also for
their family. Huntington's tends to run in families, so the
(11:05):
families are very aware of what things are going to
look like and what the challenges are. And it comes
with a whole host of other issues. Is behavioral health factors.
There's other medical factors that need to be addressed, and
not all nursing homes can care for that, you know,
and fresh River has this ability to care for folks
that have this diagnosis in their short term unit and
their long term unit on their memory care unit on
(11:27):
their behavioral health unit where whatever their care needs are,
they're able to receive them in whatever the appropriate unit is.
And we have this relationship with Yukon Health and their
Huntington's Disease Clinic where they have a mid level provider
in APRN and physician oversight that what we call round
on these residents, meaning that they're there frequently checking in
(11:49):
on their status, making adjustments to their medication and their
care plan. So we have that sort of prestigious third party,
you know, partnership that we've put together. But the grant
funds itself actually was to go towards equipment, durable equipment
and supplies, but it really boils down to is things
like communication devices, assistive devices for eating, seating, bedding, specialized
(12:14):
areas that you know, like a lounge where they can relax,
it has low stimulation. So it's really very very tailored
to the disease process and the goal again, you know,
as stated, you know that the state wants these specialized programs,
but they also want to make sure that people can
receive care in Connecticut. So the goal was not to
have those with you know, residents with Huntington's disease have
(12:36):
to seek care in Massachusetts and New York and elsewhere.
They can get it here at home, close to home,
done correctly, done well, And so they really kind of
jumped us forward. It was one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars grant or thereabouts, and we've done the purchasing and
we're rolling out the equipment and we're really going to
be able to see what the impact is soon.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That must feel wonderful.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Absolutely, it does.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
What should people look for are when they're choosing a
care facility for their loved one.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, this gets I would say it gets more difficult
in some ways and easier in others. Obviously, you know,
you can seek out information from a million sources in
an instant these days. But I think everybody is starting
to become aware that that there's a lot of not
that useful feedback as well, and I think that's especially
pronounced in our field. I think to really make a
(13:24):
decision for your loved one, you've got to get it
narrowed down to the nursing homes and the long term
care providers that are you know where in the geography
and you know are close enough to you to be
able to visit and all those things, but you also
need to eventually get there and meet the administrator, meet
the leadership team, and tour the facility. We have feedback
(13:46):
of all types about our centers, and some of it
is accurate and some of it is not. Not all
of it is useful. There's a lot of things in
the public domain, like you know, news articles about things
that are not not not super helpful. It's one of
those things that you really need to get out there
and see it. And you know, obviously you might start
with considering twenty different care centers in different settings, but
(14:07):
when you do have it isolated down you need to
see the place in person. You need to talk to folks.
You need to see what their footprint is in the community.
Are they giving back, are they innovative? Are they on
the cutting edge? Our residents at the center of everything
that they do. And you can really, once you really
get your arms around that, you can make a well
informed decision. But I would say not to rely on honestly,
(14:31):
Google reviews and things like that or not as helpful
as the full picture. You really need to know the full.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Picture, agreed. I also think that you can speak to
nursing assistants because they do most of the hands on
work there. So I know for myself, when my grandmother
had Alzheimer's disease, I went there and I spoke with
the nursing assistance. I just got to know their personalities
and how often they go in the rooms, and you know,
do they speak to them. You know, again, like you said,
you speak to people who are there who have used
(14:59):
the facility before. But it's very difficult to find the
right care center. But you are again one stoff shopping,
it seems like, and you've covered all of the bases.
If I knew that you existed many many years ago,
I probably would have come around.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, well that's that's a good endorsement right there, for sure.
And you know, I've toured in our nursing homes with
family members personally, and you know, as I've walked around,
you know, obviously you're looking to see that it's clean
and bright and all those and cheery and all those things.
But I've watched our staff interact with those families immediately,
you know, saying hello, welcome, welcoming them, you know, looking
(15:36):
to make sure they're they're well accommodated, and those staff
members didn't know what we were necessarily were there for
who I even was? You know that I don't. Not
all of them can spot me by face or by name.
And that's what I watch resonate with those family members
is you know, you want people who care, and you
can detect that really quickly.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Absolutely. I remember I would go different times of the day,
you know, little surprise visits here and there, and we
were very, very blessed to have around a wonderful facility.
Are there any new priorities for next year expansions or
programs facilities.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, I mean we're always looking to be, you know,
on the on the leading edge of what's happening. So
you know, if there's a need out there by a
health system, a hospital, a community, you know, we're looking
to fill that. When we start clinical programs, we don't
look to do them in name only. We look to
really create what is needed to have a resident be successful.
(16:30):
So generally that is equipment and relationships with hospitals and
health systems and physicians. It's it is bringing on, you know,
specialty consultants, whether that's a physician or a different format
and other partnerships that we need with the community, whether
that's with you know, nonprofit organizations or other community providers
that either come in or we you know, have some
(16:52):
kind of consulting relationship. It's just really about creating something
that's that's really going to make an impact otherwise, you know,
I think the general public thinks of us as pretty vanilla,
you know, in terms of like nursing homes. They see
as this nursing home is the same as that nursing home,
and that's not really the case, and we still see
people default to whoever is the closest to their home.
(17:14):
And that's not always a bad thing. I mean, obviously
that makes it easy to visit, and that's a huge
difference maker. But sometimes you go a little bit further
away and you have much better outcomes, or you get
past the lobby because you know, that's you know, you
could have a big, glorious lobby, but that's not really
what the care is. So if you dig to the
next level a little bit deeper, you'll see that it's
not all the same one one to one. So it
(17:37):
really makes a difference as to what, you know, the
goals really are of the care center and the priorities
and what they're really doing for those residents. So we're
looking to continue to do that. We're looking to continue
to grow and you know, really be a leading provider
of long term care in the state and be caring
for you know, those that historically could be underserved. We
(17:58):
do a lot of that. Yeah, it's just looking to
be on the leading edge.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Wonderful, very very good points. How can people find out more?
Can they go to a website? Is there a phone number?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah? We we intentionally have a very very strong website
that I you know, personally help maintain. I k h
N dot com, I C A r e h N
dot com has uh leads us, leads folks to all
of our different care centers across New England, has details
on all of our programs. It's again very very robust
so that it's a one stop shop for for information.
(18:31):
It also leads to contact us pages that were very
responsive if if folks want to schedule tours or want
more information. We have a pretty big footprint on social media,
so we're on you know, Facebook and and X and
Instagram and LinkedIn and all those things. So we put
a lot of information out to help make informed decisions,
and yeah, we absolutely want people to reach out. We'll
(18:53):
facilitate tours, we'll answer questions. One of the things we
really see a lot of is that even though this
need comes up up for so many families, there's just
not a lot of information on how to actually access
a nursing home and what you need for you know,
insurance and how do you go from the community to
a nursing home when assisted living or another setting is
(19:13):
not appropriate. And I try to help a lot of
times personally with those things, just because there's still, in
this day and age, somehow still such a lack of
information around it. So we want to be a resource
all around.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Oh, that is such a good point. I'm so glad
that you brought that up, because that was something you know,
you look at the person, the patient's funds, you know,
what do they have, what can they afford and navigating Medicare, medicaid,
whatever it is. So I'm so happy that you said that,
because so many people are like, I don't even know
if I could afford it, and I don't know who
accepts what. So that's that's a huge undertaking in this process.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, and whatever help we can provide we tried to,
I mean not, you can't certainly can't put all that
information necessarily on the website. So sometimes it takes talking
to a human being and it takes you know, connections
to Medicaid and as as you said, all the payers
are big issue and it's very complicated, but we try
to boil it down to what is really you know,
needed and helpful.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I just love the personal connection that you have, you know,
with the patients, with and knowing all of this. I'm
speaking with David Scozleck. He is vice president of business
Development and Communications with Icare Health Network and touch Points Rehab. Again.
That web address is Ikrehn dot com. Thank you so
(20:27):
much for being here today and for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Thank you so much.
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest this morning is David Scosleck. He is vice president
of business development and Communications with I Care Health Network
and touch Points Rehab.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning, good morning, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
My pleasure. For those who don't know about I Care
Health Network, what do you do? Let's talk about your mission,
the types of care you provide. We could probably be here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
For hours, we could, yes, So we are a skilled
nursing provider, long term care provider here in Connecticut. We're
based in Manchester. We just passed our twenty fifth anniversary
last year, so I've been in operation for a long time,
providing care to residents now in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
We say our mission is enriching the lives of the
residents we serve, and we tend to care for a
(00:45):
wide range of different individuals, but those that have complex
and challenging medical conditions, and we have a lot of
specialty services that we provide to tailor our care to
those special needs that they may have.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Congratulations on your mouth stone, thank twenty five years, very impressive.
How many facilities do you operate?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We have ten here in Connecticut, mostly in Greater Hartford.
Our southernmost is in Meriden, out to the Manchester area
and up into East Windsor, and then we also have
a facility in Holyoake, Massachusetts, and one in Bennington, Vermont,
so twelve total.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I love Bennington, Vermont. I go to a little bed
and breakfast there. I'm getting off topic. It's the Shire.
It's really lovely.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's a great little town. They've been very good to
us and we've kind of just integrated into the community there.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Wonderful. Let's talk about the specialized clinical programs that you offer.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, we have a very wide range of them. It
probably would take a while to go through all of them.
Some of our major programs we do have a substance
used treatment program delivered inside of long term care that
we call I Recovery, which is obviously a big need
till these days. We provide behavioral health care in the
long term care settings, so these are folks that are
residing with us over the long term but have a
(01:59):
behavioral health DIYKE that needs treatment as well. And then
we have a whole host of different programs that are
in each of our care centers. They all have some specialty.
The newest one that we are operating now is an
on site dialysis unit at Westside Care Center in Manchester,
so residents of the facility are able to receive their
dialysis in the facility instead of going out to an
(02:20):
outpatient center and having to transport and all of the
sort of frustrations and challenges that go with going out
three times a week for multiple hours. Now they can
do that all in house. We're going to be opening
a second center of that type at Parkville Care Center
in Hartford. We also have a Huntington's disease care program
in Fresh River and East Windsor, the only one of
its kind in the state, which is a very poor
(02:45):
prognosis disease process. So essentially it needs a lot of
wrap around services, a lot of care, and again we're
the only ones providing that level of care here in Connecticut,
so we get referrals from action from all over the
region for that service. We have an HIV program at
Trinity Hill and Harford, one of two in the state.
You know, many nursing home providers can care for HIV
(03:06):
and AIDS. That's obviously it's a longstanding care program. You know,
in a lot of different areas, but we have additional
services that we're able to bring in through Ryan White
Funds and through community relationships with different providers to make
sure we're doing wrap around services and all that type
of thing. And then we're also an American Heart Association
accredited Heart failure provider at touch Points at Bloomfield in
(03:28):
Bloomfield obviously, so we opened a couple of private, renovated
heart failure suites there. We have a complex care team
that follows our heart failure residents. We communicate very closely
with the local hospitals, the local cardiologists to make sure
that the care is integrated, that the stays are you know,
the right length, and that they're not you know, folks
(03:50):
aren't readmitting to the hospital, so they're receiving their care
in place by an expert team. You know. Beyond that,
every like like I mentioned, every center has some specialty
or other. We're also a VA provider at Silver Springs
Care Center in Meriden, so we receive referrals from all
of the state. But for folks who are veterans that
are using their VA benefit, those are you know, obviously,
(04:12):
you want to make sure we're honoring our veterans and
providing expert care there too, So that does a long
standing relationship with the VA that does very well.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Whoever hired you was smart. You do a very good job.
You're very thorough and you know everything what's going on.
That's a blessing, No, thank you, appreciate it. They're blessed
to have you. Let's go back for a minute. They
call it the dialysis done. It's so important for people
to not have to go elsewhere. So tell me a
little bit more about the dialysis done. That's what you
refer to it as.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Absolutely so, we're the first in the state, slash the
second in the state to have this model. And I
say that because there's one other that started as outpatient
and became a model that's called the dialysis den So
essentially it's in home dialysis model, but it's provided in
the same kind of format as outpatient. So when folks
(05:00):
are picturing it, it is six chairs of dialysis, looks
exactly like you would see in an outpatient dialysis center
if you've been in one, and it hasn't a dialysis
nurse and a dialysis technician in the center at all times.
So really the home model of it is really kind
of not applicable for the actual resident other than the
fact that the nursing home is their home. So it's
(05:22):
kind of a long way of saying it's it's basically
they're going to an outpatient type setting, but it's just
downstairs from where their room is. So instead of getting
into a wheelchair, van, a cab, an ambulance, a family
member's car and driving however long to the outpatient center
in whatever weather they're facing and whatever kind of medical
issues or exhaustion or whatever else is going on in
(05:43):
their lives, they can just come down in their wheelchair
or walk down with staff, receive their dialysis right there
inside the building, and then return to the rest of
their day. And so it's a lot more integrated. The
staff gets the opportunity to really know them well, which
helps with them, you know, making sure they actually make
it to their appointments and don't decline because of all
(06:05):
those other reasons, making sure that if there is a
change in their condition, everybody is aware of what their
baseline is and what their needs are. So it's very
much an integrated and coordinated model. It's probably where the
rest of the you know, the state and the country
are going to go because there's so many nursing home
residents receiving dialysis, they might as well get it right
there in their own facility. So the partnership is with
(06:27):
Divita Dialysis, probably the best well known dialysis provider in
the country. And like I said, we're going from six
chairs at Westside to adding another six chairs at Parkville
Care Center in Hartford, And when you go to full
capacity with those two, that means we could be caring
for up to seventy two residents on dialysis. So it's
a big impact to the area. Again, a kind of
(06:48):
a leap forward and care. So we're very excited about it.
It's been mostly my project, so you know, personally excited
about it as well.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I love this so much because if you know anyone
who's ever gone through diet analysis, especially at a nursing home,
you know, waiting for that ambulance, all of the things
that you were saying earlier to take them over to dialysis. Wow,
this is just amazing. You also talked about the heart
failure suites. Let's talk a little bit more about what
those consist of.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Sure, So, heart failure is a very common condition in
nursing homes, because it generally becomes what we say, more
of refractory or more difficult to manage and care for
in certain populations. And there's a lot of again technical
but co morbidities that go with that, so there's generally
other respiratory diseases or something else alongside of it. So
it needs an intense level of care, and we are
(07:37):
able to provide that care both from the aspect of
having these relationships with the local health systems and hospitals,
their cardiology teams and their heart failure teams, but also
the fact that we can have our own complex care
nurse that's following their daily weights, their lab values, all
these things that are inputs into their success with their
(07:57):
heart failure. And then beyond that, we actually have some
special permissions from the state where you show your competencies
and caring for this and they give you special permission
to administer medications that aren't available to every nursing home
as well. So we're able to sort of add all
these pieces to the puzzle to make sure that again
residents are not going out to the hospital for their
(08:18):
care or readmitting or kind of back and forth to
the er. They're staying in place they're receiving the care
they need, they're getting back on their feet, and they're
going home generally. And now we're able to do that
with a third party accreditation. So you know, everyone kind
of knows who the American Heart Association is. They know
that that's a very strong endorsement to have a certification
(08:38):
from them. So we've obtained that this year, which we're
one of only a few in the state to have that.
And then we figured, you know, we should have special
areas in the short term care unit where these folks
could reside. So we have two private rooms, but we
have a number of other rooms that are attributed to
those with heart failure, give them some extra space, you know,
(09:00):
ad amenities to make it you know, homelike and comfortable
and also, you know, be able to have all the components,
the relationships, the clinical care and the environment to really
be comfortable.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
If you've known anyone who's had heart failure or any
kind of heart disease, this is so special for them.
It sounds like one stop shopping at I Care. It
sounds like you just have everything for anybody, any kind
of need. It's absolutely wonderful. Tell me what kind of
feedback have you received from the patients or from their
families about all his services and programs.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's a big difference maker. I mean, it's it's I mean,
we're honest, We're upfront. No one looks to reside in
a nursing home. They're not. No one has ever said
in their life that they're looking forward to living or
receiving care in a nursing home. So the goal is
really to make it as homelike as possible, make the
outcomes as good as possible, make sure that the care
is you know, the integrity the care is there, and
(09:52):
make sure that you can you know, when their goal
is short term rehab, that you're able to get them
home as quickly and as safely as po possible. And
you know, you do see people that come back because
they need care again. I mean, that's the nature of it.
And that's the best endorsement I think we can have,
is that when they get in a situation with their
care needs that they need this level of care again,
(10:13):
they think of us. That's the gold standard for us.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Absolutely, you've recently received grant funding.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
We did the actual the dialysis units were partially or
mostly grant funded from the state the sentiment from the
state and was that they wanted to have specialty units
inside of nursing facilities. I obviously don't want to speak
for them, but I know that was the goal, was
to be able to get specialized care as close to
nursing home residents as possible through these specialized units and
(10:43):
put out, you know, a grant process, which we were
awarded on the dialysis side, but we were also for
that Huntington's program at fresh River that I mentioned, so
we're the only provider again who is doing this in
the state. It's a very you know, poor prognosis as
I mentioned, which means that you know, you have to
be able to care for the resident but also for
their family. Huntington's tends to run in families, so the
(11:05):
families are very aware of what things are going to
look like and what the challenges are. And it comes
with a whole host of other issues. Is behavioral health factors.
There's other medical factors that need to be addressed, and
not all nursing homes can care for that, you know,
and fresh River has this ability to care for folks
that have this diagnosis in their short term unit and
their long term unit on their memory care unit on
(11:27):
their behavioral health unit where whatever their care needs are,
they're able to receive them in whatever the appropriate unit is.
And we have this relationship with Yukon Health and their
Huntington's Disease Clinic where they have a mid level provider
in APRN and physician oversight that what we call round
on these residents, meaning that they're there frequently checking in
(11:49):
on their status, making adjustments to their medication and their
care plan. So we have that sort of prestigious third party,
you know, partnership that we've put together. But the grant
funds itself actually was to go towards equipment, durable equipment
and supplies, but it really boils down to is things
like communication devices, assistive devices for eating, seating, bedding, specialized
(12:14):
areas that you know, like a lounge where they can relax,
it has low stimulation. So it's really very very tailored
to the disease process and the goal again, you know,
as stated, you know that the state wants these specialized programs,
but they also want to make sure that people can
receive care in Connecticut. So the goal was not to
have those with you know, residents with Huntington's disease have
(12:36):
to seek care in Massachusetts and New York and elsewhere.
They can get it here at home, close to home,
done correctly, done well, And so they really kind of
jumped us forward. It was one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars grant or thereabouts, and we've done the purchasing and
we're rolling out the equipment and we're really going to
be able to see what the impact is soon.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
That must feel wonderful.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Absolutely, it does.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
What should people look for are when they're choosing a
care facility for their loved one.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, this gets I would say it gets more difficult
in some ways and easier in others. Obviously, you know,
you can seek out information from a million sources in
an instant these days. But I think everybody is starting
to become aware that that there's a lot of not
that useful feedback as well, and I think that's especially
pronounced in our field. I think to really make a
(13:24):
decision for your loved one, you've got to get it
narrowed down to the nursing homes and the long term
care providers that are you know where in the geography
and you know are close enough to you to be
able to visit and all those things, but you also
need to eventually get there and meet the administrator, meet
the leadership team, and tour the facility. We have feedback
(13:46):
of all types about our centers, and some of it
is accurate and some of it is not. Not all
of it is useful. There's a lot of things in
the public domain, like you know, news articles about things
that are not not not super helpful. It's one of
those things that you really need to get out there
and see it. And you know, obviously you might start
with considering twenty different care centers in different settings, but
(14:07):
when you do have it isolated down you need to
see the place in person. You need to talk to folks.
You need to see what their footprint is in the community.
Are they giving back, are they innovative? Are they on
the cutting edge? Our residents at the center of everything
that they do. And you can really, once you really
get your arms around that, you can make a well
informed decision. But I would say not to rely on honestly,
(14:31):
Google reviews and things like that or not as helpful
as the full picture. You really need to know the full.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Picture, agreed. I also think that you can speak to
nursing assistants because they do most of the hands on
work there. So I know for myself, when my grandmother
had Alzheimer's disease, I went there and I spoke with
the nursing assistance. I just got to know their personalities
and how often they go in the rooms, and you know,
do they speak to them. You know, again, like you said,
you speak to people who are there who have used
(14:59):
the facility before. But it's very difficult to find the
right care center. But you are again one stoff shopping,
it seems like, and you've covered all of the bases.
If I knew that you existed many many years ago,
I probably would have come around.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, well that's that's a good endorsement right there, for sure.
And you know, I've toured in our nursing homes with
family members personally, and you know, as I've walked around,
you know, obviously you're looking to see that it's clean
and bright and all those and cheery and all those things.
But I've watched our staff interact with those families immediately,
you know, saying hello, welcome, welcoming them, you know, looking
(15:36):
to make sure they're they're well accommodated, and those staff
members didn't know what we were necessarily were there for
who I even was? You know that I don't. Not
all of them can spot me by face or by name.
And that's what I watch resonate with those family members
is you know, you want people who care, and you
can detect that really quickly.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Absolutely. I remember I would go different times of the day,
you know, little surprise visits here and there, and we
were very, very blessed to have around a wonderful facility.
Are there any new priorities for next year expansions or
programs facilities.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, I mean we're always looking to be, you know,
on the on the leading edge of what's happening. So
you know, if there's a need out there by a
health system, a hospital, a community, you know, we're looking
to fill that. When we start clinical programs, we don't
look to do them in name only. We look to
really create what is needed to have a resident be successful.
(16:30):
So generally that is equipment and relationships with hospitals and
health systems and physicians. It's it is bringing on, you know,
specialty consultants, whether that's a physician or a different format
and other partnerships that we need with the community, whether
that's with you know, nonprofit organizations or other community providers
that either come in or we you know, have some
(16:52):
kind of consulting relationship. It's just really about creating something
that's that's really going to make an impact otherwise, you know,
I think the general public thinks of us as pretty vanilla,
you know, in terms of like nursing homes. They see
as this nursing home is the same as that nursing home,
and that's not really the case, and we still see
people default to whoever is the closest to their home.
(17:14):
And that's not always a bad thing. I mean, obviously
that makes it easy to visit, and that's a huge
difference maker. But sometimes you go a little bit further
away and you have much better outcomes, or you get
past the lobby because you know, that's you know, you
could have a big, glorious lobby, but that's not really
what the care is. So if you dig to the
next level a little bit deeper, you'll see that it's
not all the same one one to one. So it
(17:37):
really makes a difference as to what, you know, the
goals really are of the care center and the priorities
and what they're really doing for those residents. So we're
looking to continue to do that. We're looking to continue
to grow and you know, really be a leading provider
of long term care in the state and be caring
for you know, those that historically could be underserved. We
(17:58):
do a lot of that. Yeah, it's just looking to
be on the leading edge.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Wonderful, very very good points. How can people find out more?
Can they go to a website? Is there a phone number?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah? We we intentionally have a very very strong website
that I you know, personally help maintain. I k h
N dot com, I C A r e h N
dot com has uh leads us, leads folks to all
of our different care centers across New England, has details
on all of our programs. It's again very very robust
so that it's a one stop shop for for information.
(18:31):
It also leads to contact us pages that were very
responsive if if folks want to schedule tours or want
more information. We have a pretty big footprint on social media,
so we're on you know, Facebook and and X and
Instagram and LinkedIn and all those things. So we put
a lot of information out to help make informed decisions,
and yeah, we absolutely want people to reach out. We'll
(18:53):
facilitate tours, we'll answer questions. One of the things we
really see a lot of is that even though this
need comes up up for so many families, there's just
not a lot of information on how to actually access
a nursing home and what you need for you know,
insurance and how do you go from the community to
a nursing home when assisted living or another setting is
(19:13):
not appropriate. And I try to help a lot of
times personally with those things, just because there's still, in
this day and age, somehow still such a lack of
information around it. So we want to be a resource
all around.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Oh, that is such a good point. I'm so glad
that you brought that up, because that was something you know,
you look at the person, the patient's funds, you know,
what do they have, what can they afford and navigating Medicare, medicaid,
whatever it is. So I'm so happy that you said that,
because so many people are like, I don't even know
if I could afford it, and I don't know who
accepts what. So that's that's a huge undertaking in this process.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, and whatever help we can provide we tried to,
I mean not, you can't certainly can't put all that
information necessarily on the website. So sometimes it takes talking
to a human being and it takes you know, connections
to Medicaid and as as you said, all the payers
are big issue and it's very complicated, but we try
to boil it down to what is really you know,
needed and helpful.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I just love the personal connection that you have, you know,
with the patients, with and knowing all of this. I'm
speaking with David Scozleck. He is vice president of business
Development and Communications with Icare Health Network and touch Points Rehab. Again.
That web address is Ikrehn dot com. Thank you so
(20:27):
much for being here today and for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Thank you so much.
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