On Lok Looks to Expand PACE Model of Long-Term Care to Rural California Through Grant

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Lok, the nonprofit organization that founded the nationally acclaimed Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) and oversees 10 PACE centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, is evaluating the viability of PACE programs in rural California. A grant from the SCAN Foundation of Long Beach, California supports this effort.

“While we serve more than 1,000 seniors in the Bay Area through On Lok Lifeways, it’s now time to expand our focus to help rural Californians, who are seriously underserved.”

As part of its mission to improve seniors’ quality of life, On Lok is collaborating with providers of eldercare in Riverside, San Joaquin and Humboldt counties to assess the feasibility of PACE in their rural communities, A $100,000 grant provided by the SCAN Foundation enables On Lok’s technical assistance staff to lay the groundwork, through the project, for developing local PACE programs to serve seniors in these three rural areas.

Stakeholder meetings co-sponsored by On Lok and local community partners are showing strong interest in PACE. The Riverside County Office on Aging convened dozens of health and social service providers, consumers and policy makers in December to discuss the benefits and challenges of developing PACE to serve the Coachella Valley. In late January, the Humboldt Senior Resource Center brought together 35 local providers and policy makers in Bayside (near Eureka) to consider how PACE development might unfold in Humboldt. A third stakeholder meeting will occur in Stockton in March, led by the Hospice of San Joaquin.

Compared with urban seniors, California’s rural elderly tend to be in poorer health and face greater difficulty accessing essential care services. Low-income and disabled seniors are among those who suffer the most. To date, no large-scale policy efforts have succeeded in ensuring their access to health care; expanding PACE in rural California is timely now, with health care reform a national priority. Local providers believe PACE will dramatically improve care services for the frail elderly in their communities; they are looking to On Lok to help them customize the PACE model for their communities.

“Our organization is dedicated to providing high-quality healthcare and social services that allow seniors to continue living in the comfort of their own homes,” said Robert Edmondson, On Lok’s CEO and Executive Director. “While we serve more than 1,000 seniors in the Bay Area through On Lok Lifeways, it’s now time to expand our focus to help rural Californians, who are seriously underserved.”

Successfully modifying PACE for rural California will require innovation to translate the success PACE has had in densely populated urban settings. Challenges include a relative lack of health care providers and facilities, long distances between seniors and services, and lower population densities. On Lok Lifeways, a known innovator in health care and 2009 recipient of the American Hospital Association’s distinguished Justin Ford Kimball Innovators Award, is tapping the know-how of rural PACE providers in other states to help local agencies adopt PACE to serve rural Californians.

About On Lok

On Lok pioneered the PACE model of care more than 37 years ago; this model has since been replicated at 72 programs in 31 states. On Lok and other PACE sites provide frail seniors with the necessary primary and preventive care, nutrition, prescription drugs, physical therapy, social services and other acute and long-term care participants need in order to live at home rather than in a nursing facility. Participants pay no out-of-pocket costs if they are recipients of Medicare and Medical.