A couple of modular home factories throughout the US,
especially Nationwide Homes in the east, have been trying to promote medical
cottages as an alternative to having mom and/or dad put into a nursing home. So
far the movement hasn’t gotten on its feet to any extent but this month’s AARP
Bulletin features a story about all the apps and equipment that can be added to
existing homes to allow caregiver’s peace of mind.
What really caught my eye was the headline, “Is this the end
of the Nursing Home?”
One of the logical conclusions you can make beyond a caregiver
wiring their parent’s home and monitoring everything that is happening through their smart phone is a
medical cottage placed beside the caregiver’s home that becomes an extension of
the home.
With all the same equipment already installed by the modular
home factory that can be found in a good nursing home room, these units can be
moved to another caregiver’s home to be used again. Currently the zoning laws
in almost every community in the US don’t allow this type of unit to be set temporarily
and tied into the existing home but there is growing pressure to allow it. When AARP decides to take up the medical cottage as alternative way of life for its members, the pressure will be on federal government to begin making the changes necessary.
Every modular factory is looking for the next best thing and
the medical cottage just might be one of them.
I am going to begin featuring articles about this unique
opportunity for our industry and if your factory is currently offering or has
built this type of unit, please send me the details. If AARP is beginning to
see the end of nursing homes on the horizon, they have to be replaced with
something and that could be modular medical cottages.
