Awards
 | This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .(June 2021) |
William H. Thomas | |
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| Born | October 13, 1959 |
| Other names | Bill Thomas |
| Alma mater | Cortland State |
| Spouse | Jude Meyers Thomas |
| Website | https://drbillthomas.org |
William H. Thomas (born October 13, 1959), also known as Bill Thomas, is an American author, performer and authority on geriatric medicine and eldercare from New York State. In 2014, Thomas organized a 25-city "non-fiction" theatrical tour to launch his book and to promote the documentary film Alive Inside . [1] He is the founder of The Eden Alternative, a philosophy and program that de-institutionalized nursing homes in all 50 states and worldwide over the past 20 years. A self-described “Nursing Home Abolitionist,” he is also creator of Green House Project, a long-term care approach where nursing homes are torn down and replaced with small, home-like environments. In 2005, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced a five-year $10 million grant that would result in the creation of Green House projects in all fifty states. [2] As a professor at The Erickson School at UMBC, Thomas led development of the nation's first emergency department designed for older adults. [3]
Born in Tioga County, Thomas wrote of his childhood in Nichols, New York, "I was surrounded by older relatives since the day I was born and thought of my grandmother's house as an extension, for a lack of a better word, of my own. I think that the most important thing I learned was that older relatives were valuable and esteemed members of the extended family. In fact, they were the glue that held the family together." [4]
In 2008, the Wall Street Journal named Thomas' among the 12 most influential Americans shaping aging in the 21st century. [5] U.S. News & World Report described Thomas as a revolutionary, "With his startling common-sense ideas and his ability to persuade others to take a risk, this creative and wildly exuberant 46-year-old country doctor has become something of a culture changer—reimagining how Americans will approach aging in the 21st century. And with 35 million Americans over 65—a number that will double by 2030--that takes a big imagination indeed." [6]
In 2014, Thomas organized a "non-fiction theater" roadshow bus tour to 25 cities nationwide featuring spoken word, film, art and live music performances. Sponsored by AARP's Life Reimagined, the tour targeted members of the baby boom generation and offered new approaches to growth, aging, health and wellness based on Thomas' non-fiction book Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper and More Connected Life. [7] Performers included Thomas, TV personality Dr. Janet Taylor and Musicians for World Harmony founder Samite Mulondo. The tour featured an exclusive director's cut of the 2014 Sundance Audience Choice documentary film Alive Inside.
From 1991 to 2007, Thomas operated a small farm in Sherburne, New York, where he built a house powered entirely by wind and solar energy. [6] He now resides in Ithaca, New York, with his wife, Judith Meyers-Thomas, three sons, and one daughter. Thomas and his wife had two daughters with Ohtahara syndrome, a severe seizure disorder. Their daughter Hannah died in March 2015 at the age of 17. [8] [9] [10]
Thomas attended the State University College at Cortland, where he earned a B.S. in Biology, summa cum laude, in 1982. While in college, he ran successfully for the presidency of the college's Student Association and unsuccessfully for mayor of the city of Cortland. Thomas graduated from Harvard Medical School (1986), where he was a founding editor of Murmurs, a quarterly journal of opinion. Thomas went on to graduate medical training in the Highland Hospital/University of Rochester Family Medicine Residency, where he was selected by the Mead Johnson Foundation as one of the top Family Medicine residents in the country. [11] Though he planned on a career in emergency medicine, a part-time position as the medical director of a small rural nursing home in New Berlin, New York, turned into a full-time and lifelong passion for improving the well-being of older people. [12] Thomas added a Certificate in Geriatrics in 1994 and opened a geriatric medical practice that grew to become a multi-physician group. Although he left full-time medical practice in 2004, he continues to lecture at the SUNY Health Science Center's Clinical Campus in Binghamton. In 2007, he was appointed as Professor of Aging Studies and Distinguished Fellow at UMBC's Erickson School in Baltimore, MD. [13]
Thomas and his wife developed the Eden Alternative [14] in the early 1990s as a philosophy to deinstitutionalize long-term care facilities by alleviating the "three plagues" of boredom, helplessness, and loneliness. The Eden Alternative put forward a critique of the status quo in long-term care and offered a creative way to “change the culture” of nursing homes by bringing growth and laughter into the lives of elders. The philosophy called for fundamental changes in the relationship between staff and management and introduced pets, gardens and children to nursing homes. Thomas founded the Eden Alternative non-profit organization in 1994, which has grown to include affiliates in Japan, Australia, Scandinavia, Europe, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as the fifty states. Dr. Thomas continues to serve as its president.
In spreading the Eden Alternative philosophy nationwide, Thomas said he saw that America's nursing home buildings were “aging faster than the people living inside them.” This led him to imagine a new approach to long-term that became known as the Green House. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Dr. Thomas oversaw the construction of the nation's first Green Houses. In 2005, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced a five-year ten million dollar grant to support the launch of Green House projects in all fifty states. [15] In November, 2008, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) said the Green House model "has shown promise for both improving the quality of life and care in these settings," and should be piloted. [16] ProviderMagazine.com in May 2010 called The Green House Project the "pinnacle" of culture change in long-term care. [17]
In 2008, Thomas led a team of experts from the Erickson School of Aging Studies at UMBC to create the nation's first elder-friendly emergency department at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland. [3] The separate ER was scientifically designed to reduce anxiety, confusion and the risk of falling. [18]
Thomas received the 12th Annual Heinz Award for the Human Condition [19] in 2006 for his contributions to long-term care: "With contagious enthusiasm and an unwavering vision, Dr. William Thomas has helped bring dignity, joy and love into an environment that has been too long lacking in these essential human qualities. As America continues to age, his transformation of our system of long-term care provides a timely prescription for the care of generations to come." [20]
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A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to indicate whether the institutions are public or private, and whether they provide mostly assisted living, or nursing care and emergency medical care. Nursing homes are used by people who do not need to be in a hospital, but require care that is hard to provide in a home setting. The nursing home staff attends to the patients' medical and other needs. Most nursing homes have nursing aides and skilled nurses on hand 24 hours a day.
An assisted living residence or assisted living facility (ALF) is a housing facility for people with disabilities or for adults who cannot or who choose not to live independently. The term is popular in the United States. Still, the setting is similar to a retirement home, in the sense that facilities provide a group living environment and typically cater to an older adult population. There is also Caribbean assisted living, which offers a similar service in a resort-like environment.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, leadership and training, and changing systems to address barriers to health. RWJF has been credited with helping to develop the 911 emergency system, reducing tobacco use among Americans, lowering rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies, and improving perceptions of hospice care.
Elderly care, or simply eldercare, serves the needs of old adults. It encompasses assisted living, adult daycare, long-term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and home care.
Long-term care (LTC) is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods. Long-term care is focused on individualized and coordinated services that promote independence, maximize patients' quality of life, and meet patients' needs over a period of time.
A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves. Assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socialization opportunities are often provided. Some of the characteristics typically are: the community must be age-restricted or age-qualified, residents must be partially or fully retired, and the community offers shared services or amenities.
Major Frederick Russell Burnham DSO was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement.
Helen Lorraine (Cook) Erickson is the primary author of the modeling and role-modeling theory of nursing. Her work, co-authored with Evelyn Tomlin and Mary Ann Swain, was published in the 1980s and derived from her experience in clinical practice. In 2006 she edited a book that provides additional information describing the relationships among soul, spirit, and human form.
A group home, congregate living facility, care home, adult family home, etc., is a structured and supervised residence model that provides assisted living and medical care for those with complex health needs. Traditionally, the model has been used for children or young people who cannot live with their families or afford their own homes, people with chronic disabilities who may be adults or seniors, or people with dementia and related aged illnesses. Typically, there are no more than six residents, and there is at least one trained caregiver there 24 hours a day. In some early "model programs", a house manager, night manager, weekend activity coordinator, and four part-time skill teachers were reported. Originally, the term group home referred to homes of 8 to 16 individuals, which was a state-mandated size during deinstitutionalization. Residential nursing facilities, also included in this article, may be as large as 100 individuals in 2015, which is no longer the case in fields such as intellectual and developmental disabilities. Depending on the severity of the condition requiring one to need to live in a group home, some clients are able to attend day programs and most clients are able to live normal lifestyles.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines aging in place as "the ability to live in one's own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level".
The Green House Project is an American national non-profit organization dedicated to creating alternative living environments to traditional nursing home care facilities.
The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Aging was a permanent select committee of the United States House of Representatives between 1974 and 1992.
Mark S. Lachs is an American physician, scientist, and popular author specializing in the field of aging. He is the Irene and Roy Psaty Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, and Director of Geriatric Medicine for the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System. An internationally recognized authority on the field of elder abuse, he has authored over 100 articles on the subject and other areas of gerontology, and conducted important research on the topic. He is also a founder of the New York City Elder Abuse Center, and the not for profit charity www.elderabuse.org.
The history of medicine in the United States encompasses a variety of approaches to health care in the United States spanning from colonial days to the present. These interpretations of medicine vary from early folk remedies that fell under various different medical systems to the increasingly standardized and professional managed care of modern biomedicine.
As of 2017, approximately 1.4 million Americans live in a nursing home, two-thirds of whom rely on Medicaid to pay for their care. Residential nursing facilities receive Medicaid federal funding and approvals through a state health department. These facilities may be overseen by various types of state agency.
Esther E. Houser is the former State Long-Term Care Ombudsman in the Aging Services Division of the Department of Human Services for the State of Oklahoma. Houser served as the Long-Term Care Ombudsman from 1979 until her retirement in 2014.
Granny dumping (informal) is a form of modern senicide. The term was introduced in the early 1980s by professionals in the medical and social work fields. Granny dumping is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the abandonment of an elderly person in a public place such as a hospital or nursing home, especially by a relative". It may be carried out by family members who are unable or unwilling to continue providing care due to financial problems, burnout, lack of resources, or stress. However, instances of institutional granny dumping, by hospitals and care facilities, has also been known to occur. The "dumping" may involve the literal abandonment of an elderly person, who is taken to a location such as hospital waiting area or emergency room and then left, or in the refusal to return to collect an elderly person after the person is discharged from a hospital visit or hotel stay. While leaving an elderly person in a hospital or nursing facility is a common form of the practice, there have been incidences of elderly people being "dumped" in other locations, such as the side of a public street.
Virginia H. Fraser was an American activist for human rights, women's rights, and elder rights. She was the Long-Term Care Ombudsman for the state of Colorado for more than two decades. She co-wrote several works on nursing home care and eldercare. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.
The New Jewish Home is an American nonprofit older adult health care system based in New York City. The organization serves older adults of all religions and ethnicities at its three campuses in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Mamaroneck in Westchester County. It provides rehabilitative services, skilled nursing, senior housing, and numerous home health programs, including a certified home health agency and a home care agency. The organization was founded in 1848 by Hannah Leo of the B'nai Jeshurun Ladies' Benevolent Society.
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