Riderwood, Maryland
Project Selection
The project may contain a number of the following features but it has been identified by the Steering Committee specifically because it:
| Mixes people from diverse socio economic levels | |
| Caters to a range of age groups | |
| Offers a diversity in service types | |
| Employs community engagement in the development process | |
| Is an innovative model designed to accommodate ageing in place | Y |
| Provides housing options for a particular population groups | |
| Has undertaken conversions and/or changes of use of existing facilities | |
| Uses mixed financial funding bases | |
| Has demonstrable Environmentally Sustainable Design features |
The following project description combines information gathered from the Riderwood website http://www.ericksonliving.com/ourcommunities/rwv/ and prior visits to Riderwood by project ACSA staff member Lesley Dredge and consultant Roland Naufal.
Project Overview
The Erickson Riderwood campus is the largest Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in the USA. It was established in 2001 and built in stages. Today, the Riderwood campus is home to 2800 residents spread across five distinct neighbourhoods on 120 acres of land.
Why is Riderwood an innovative project?
A key focus at Riderwood is enhanced physical well being. The on-site Riderwood Medical Centre provides an integrated service that gives higher levels of support with specialist software to facilitate better health outcomes for residents. Doctors track patients in out of care providing a continuity between the Riderwood residence and acute care settings.
Built environment
The Riderwood campus is comprised of 1,960 independent living apartments, 151 assisted living residences and 132 skilled nursing places; a third of which are used for short-term rehabilitation stays.
Marketing for the campus states that “weather concerns are a thing of the past” - the entire campus is connected by glass-enclosed, climate-controlled walkways so you can walk from one end to the other completely under cover!
The campus has a large clubhouse, which houses dozens of amenities and services such as restaurants, a fitness centre, a hairdresser, a pharmacy, a bank, a post office, a concierge service and the campus’ medical centre.
Service model
The Erickson service model claim is that prevention is the first step in achieving an active, independent retirement. An emphasis on health is ‘built’ into daily activities with routines such as the long walks to communal areas where healthy meals are provided. Physicians at the campus practice ‘proactive medicine’, working to prevent medical problems while diagnosing others as soon as possible, before they become more serious.
The medical service provided at the Erickson Riderwood campus is what really sets it apart. There are six full-time physicians in the medical team who work exclusively for the on-site medical centre at Riderwood. The physicians are experts in working with older adults, with an average of 25 years experience focusing solely on older adults.
The medical centre also provides physicians who are on call after-hours, weekends and holidays if someone needs emergency assistance. A paramedic team is able to get to any part of the campus within three minutes of a pull-cord alert.
On-site physicians are available for appointments within 24 hours of a request. As Erickson subsidises the physicians, they are able to spend an average of 30 minutes with each patient - over three times more than the national average of 9 minutes.
This comprehensive medical service is brought together via an integrated electronic medical record (EMR) system that was developed by Erickson. When residents are admitted to hospital, their medical records are automatically dispatched to the hospitals by the EMR system. Residents may also access their own records at any time.
In 2007, 364 in every 1000 Americans aged 65 and over were admitted to hospital for an average of 5.8 days. In Erickson communities, the average was 274 admissions in every 1000 residents who stayed in hospital for an average of 3.87 days.
Who the project serves
There are currently 2700 residents at Riderwood. The average age has risen from 77-78 at the time of opening to 81-82 years old.
Project Auspice
Erickson Living has been based in Baltimore County, Maryland since 1983. The company’s core business is developing and managing retirement communities for middle-income people.
The Erickson network currently comprises 19 campuses in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia which together are home to more than 22,000 people and employ more than 12,000 staff.
Erickson was listed in the 2008 and 2009 FORTUNE ‘Best 100 Companies to Work For’ list.
