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our latest media coverage!

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071119/BUSINESS/711190337

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071010/COMMUNITY/710100473

100 Years, 100 Gifts!

Laurette Shoemaker's 100th Birthday Party is covered by Bruce Asbury who is very impressed with the gift basket of 100 gifts presented to Laurette by John Overton and Rosemary Carbonelli.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070918/VIDEO01/709180737/-1/NEWS1001

Celebrating Assisted Living Week Sept 9-15

"Living Out East" Magazine September 2007

Sarasota's first assisted nursing home, established in 1948, is Pines of Sarasota.

"Pines of Sarasota is a unique facility on 17-acres near downtown Sarasota," Estelle Crawford, Pines Foundation President said. "Most people don't realize how many firsts we offer and continue to introduce at Pines," she added.

Today, Pines is building new facilities through its current, Phase One $15 million capital fundraising campaign coinciding with the recent opening of its new Skilled Nursing Facility and the Ann and Alfred Goldstein Rehabilitation/Therapy Center.

"We are the first and only certified 'Eden Alternative Community' in Southwest Florida which is why our residents thrive at Pines," Crawford said. Pines' Child Care Center benefits employees with children as well as Pines' residents. "The intergenerational activity that occurs between our children and our residents is one part of the home-like environment the Eden Alternative promises."

"The wonderful continuity of family-like relationships with our long-term staff further benefits our residents," Crawford said. Residents also enjoy horticultural and pet therapy programs that assure they stay connected to the natural Florida environment.

"Replacing and expanding our separate Alzheimer's Unit, 'The Garden' is the focus of Phase Two of our capital campaign to provide critically needed beds for patients affected by this life altering disease," Crawford said.

For more information, call (941) 955-6293.

TV - SNN News 6 August 22,2007

Bruce Asbury interview with John Overton and Connie Snyder on the first day of school with the special needs students joining the other 3-4 year old students in our Pines Child Care Center. 

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070822/VIDEO01/708220775

The Pines of Sarasota's Child Care Center

"Living Out East" Magazine August 2007

has contracted to take up to 16 special needs three to five year old children from Sarasota County to help the Sarasota School Board comply with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements that special needs children attend classes in which they comprise no more than 50% of the class population.

Since Pines of Sarasota has a new Ann and Alfred Goldstein Rehabilitation/Therapy Center, those kids will also get needed speech, occupational and physical therapy from Pines rehabilitation staff right on campus.

Pines Contracts With School Board

Sarasota Herald Tribune 7/21/07

http://sarasotacountyschools.net/scs-newsroom/2007_06_01_archive.html

Wells Purmort, vice chairman of Pines; John W. Overton, CEO of Pines; Connie Snyder, Pines Child Care Director; and Mike McHugh, director of Pupil Support Services, Sarasota County School Board.

Pines of Sarasota has contracted with the Sarasota County School Board to care for up to 16 special-needs children in its nationally accredited Child Care Center.

The contract represents a unique partnership to help the School Board comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements this year.

"When approached by the School Board, we recognized that Pines of Sarasota was in a unique position to help in this matter," said John W. Overton, Pines of Sarasota CEO. "We are pleased to partner with the School Board in what we hope will be a model for other communities faced with the same ADA requirements."

"Pines of Sarasota was the only private entity to step up to the plate when asked for assistance from the School Board," said Mike McHugh, director of Pupil Support Services, Sarasota County School Board.

"We expect this to serve as a model for other communities to follow in addressing the requirements of pre-schools for children with special needs."

The Child Care Center at Pines of Sarasota stepped up last year when the School Board sent a request for assistance in meeting ADA requirements to assure special-needs children attend classes in which they comprise no more than 50 percent of the class.

"With our new Ann and Alfred Goldstein Rehabilitation and Therapy Center, the children will also receive needed speech, occupational and physical therapy while on our campus at the Child Care Center." Overton said.

Because Pines of Sarasota is a registered Eden Alternative Community, all the children of the Pines Child Care Center will also enjoy intergenerational activities with residents of the Pines that enhance their social development.

Pines of Sarasota is a private, nonprofit, 276-bed long-term care community on 17 acres near downtown Sarasota comprised of a new $12 million Skilled Nursing Facility and Ann and Alfred Goldstein Rehabilitation/Therapy Center, Assisted Living Facility, Alzheimer's Care Center, Adult Day Center, Child Care Center and Thrift Shop.

Pines of Sarasota Foundation, established in 1990, is the fundraising organization of Pines of Sarasota and is in the midst of a $23 million capital campaign that will assure Pines will continue in perpetuity to provide senior care to those who have outlived their resources.

Pines of Sarasota Helps Fill A Growing Gap In Alzheimer's Care

Sarasota Herald Tribune 7/20/07  Guest columnist - John W. Overton

In June, the Herald-Tribune ran a heart-wrenching article about a man with Alzheimer's whose family found it nearly impossible to access care in local nursing homes. The difficulties in finding safe, compassionate care for those ravaged by Alzheimer's are indeed very great, especially when psychiatric symptoms are manifested. Alzheimer's presents far more difficult challenges because of significant mental impairment, which can include agitation from mild to severe, fear, violence, disorientation and the realities of a disease that progresses toward further degeneration.

The problem in finding care is a systems problem. State mental hospitals were closed down some years ago. The result is that seniors who need residential placement in a mental health facility are being sent to long-term care facilities that lack the expertise to cope with such individuals.

Many dementia patients are being well cared for in long-term care facilities. However, such services may be beyond the scope of a skilled nursing home's license. In addition, families of other residents don't want aggressive Alzheimer's patients to be kept, out of concern for the safety of their loved ones. Staff members, as well, expect to be protected in their work environment. Thus, organizations in the business of caring for disabled seniors must work very hard to provide a level of care that pleases residents and their families.

My message is this: Those of us at Pines of Sarasota who are committed to caring for the Alzheimer's patient are becoming a vanishing breed. Just within the last couple of years, three nursing homes in Sarasota County eliminated their Alzheimer's units.

For its emphasis on Alzheimer's care, Pines will become much more important in the next several years. The Alzheimer's Association predicts that because Americans are living longer, the incidence of Alzheimer's will continue to increase, particularly when the baby boomer generation reaches the 65-year-old threshold.

As a registered Eden Alternative Community, Pines follows a holistic approach that goes far beyond the clinical needs of memory-impaired residents. Our on-campus child care center offers many opportunities to mix generations. This creates an atmosphere that promotes learning and acceptance in the children, and home-like pleasures and laughter for the adults. Abundant, secured outdoor areas and frequent visits by therapy animals, Circus Sarasota clowns and local entertainers complete the goal of staving off boredom while enabling those in our care to continue to lead a rewarding life.

Pines of Sarasota has made a commitment to the Alzheimer's community, for now and in the future. We're extremely proud of the care provided in our secured Alzheimer's/dementia center, and we are planning to build a new center that will expand our capacity to provide residential services. In addition, we are working with the Alzheimer's Association to provide an on-site support group for patients' family members.

But apart from Pines, our concern is that many long-term providers are eliminating Alzheimer's patients from the mix. Why? Primarily, it's due to insufficient reimbursement and the specialized care and expertise needed for this population.

The statistics regarding Alzheimer's are alarming and the meaning of those statistics even more alarming. Two percent of people between 65 and 74 years of age have Alzheimer's disease. Nineteen percent of people between 75 and 84 have Alzheimer's and 42 percent or nearly half of people over 85 have Alzheimer's.

These numbers have a more dramatic meaning for Sarasota than any other county in the country, because 32 percent of Sarasota County's citizens are over the age of 65, compared with the state at 17 percent or the nation at 13 percent.

Recently, Alzheimer's disease has captured both national and local press coverage. Nearly 26 million Americans are afflicted with the disease.

Until a cure is found for Alzheimer's, the infrastructure that we have, at this time, will be challenged to provide the kind of care of which we can be proud. The prism through which we see this multidimensional task raises two vital questions: If not us, then who will? If not now, when?

A Community Asset Needs Help

  by Waldo Proffitt  (Reprinted by express permission of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune)

There are, I venture to say, few people more concerned with the impact of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan than those who live or work on the shaded, neatly trimmed grounds of Pines of Sarasota --- a charitable, nonprofit senior-care community located on North Orange Avenue.

It is usually thought of as a nursing home, understandably, since its main activity is operating a 204-bed rehabilitation and skilled nursing center, which includes a 45-bed secured Alzheimer's care center.  But, it also has a 72-bed assisted-living facility and a preschool child-care center, about which more shortly.

Slightly less than 90 percent of the nursing home patients receive Medicaid, which in Florida and nationwide provides a major source of funds for nursing homes.  As part of the legislative package establishing Medicare drug benefits, Medicaid patients were assigned to Medicare Part D for their prescription drugs.

This means that nearly all people living in nursing homes are covered under Medicare Part D.  Indeed, more than six million of the ten million people who had signed up for Part D by January 1 were in institutions of one kind or another and were arbitrarily and randomly (it says) assigned to one of the hundreds of drug plans sold by insurance companies or HMOs.

The question whether the assignments were truly random or may have been titled toward companies which contributed to Republican causes or candidates may be raised by some journalists, but not by this one, certainly not in this column whose purpose was and still is to say a few kind words about the Pines.

In my opinion, it is a major health care resource and a tribute to the good instincts of the community and its sensibility to the needs of older citizens regardless of the condition of their bank accounts.  Pines of Sarasota was created in 1948 as a project of the Sarasota Kiwanis Club and was known for some years as the Sarasota Welfare Home.  It started with six residents, three staff members and an operating budget of $15,749.

It now has 276 residents, plus day clients, 350 full and part-time staff members and an annual budget of $14 million.

It receives no local, state or federal subsidies.  Most of its expenses are reimbursed by Medicaid or Medicare, but this is because most of its clients are eligible for those programs and their expenses would be paid, Pines or no Pines.

Except for a large residue of good will on both sides, there is no longer any connection between Kiwanis and the Pines, for many years now owned and managed by an independent, local board of directors.

The greatest strength of the Pines is its staff --- efficient and caring in work which is not glamorous and often not appreciated.  At the Pines, management appreciates caregivers, treats them with the respect they deserve and runs the licensed preschool care center, where many Pines employees bring their young children.

The proximity on one campus of youngsters and oldsters is good for both groups, and its convenience for working mothers is part of the explanation for the fact that the Pines has many employees who have been there for ten or a dozen years and developed a genuine bond with the patients for whom they care.

The greatest weakness of the Pines is its physical plant, which is, in a word: Old.  Patients are housed in buildings which are well maintained and spiffy clean, but do not meet modern state and federal standards in several respects, most notably width of hallways, number of bathrooms and the capacity of heating/cooling systems.

The situation is serious enough that the board members of the Pines were convinced they had to choose between shutting down or undertaking a major rebuilding program.

They chose to rebuild, which is why, as I write, they are in the midst of a $20 million fund-raising campaign.

Plans have been drawn, short-term construction financing has been secured, contracts have been let and work is under way on the first new building, expected to be opened in the fall.  The Pines stands on some of the highest ground in Sarasota.  The new buildings will be 23 feet above sea level and will meet the latest hurricane-resistance standards.

When the rebuilding project is completed, the Pines will have a physical plant to match the first-rate quality of its staff.

From the start, the Pines has had a close and mutually rewarding relationship with the Sarasota community.  It needs our help now, and if you would like to chip in with a few bucks, or a million, it is hard to think how you could put your money to better use.

Pines of Sarasota
1501 N. Orange Avenue ~ Sarasota, Florida 34236
(941) 365-0250

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