Olathe ? Talk about a miraculous recovery.

The Johnson County Nursing Center, targeted for closing two years ago, has found new life as a place to study long-term care of the elderly.

The center, a former county poor farm, had lost $800,000 a year for five years when county commissioners proposed closing it.

But on Monday, the center’s newly created Geriatric Education, Research & Training Institute was to open its doors to students who want to become long-term caregivers and to nurses who want to expand their skills.

“We’ve gone from closing down to the cutting edge,” said Penny Shaffer, a geriatrics nurse from Olathe who is the institute’s first director of education. “It’s all part of a whole mind-set change of how we are going to take care of the elderly in a different way so that going to a nursing home is not the beginning of the end.”

Money troubles

Still, the center must generate enough cash to overcome notoriously low Medicaid reimbursements. The center also must cover the institute’s training costs, and do it within four years, when county subsidies are scheduled to end.

“This is still a work in progress,” said Hannes Zacharias, an assistant county manager who helped shepherd the project. “But it’s a tremendous idea whose time is probably past due.

“Financially, we’re still not out of the woods. It remains to be seen four years from now whether or not the nursing center can survive without county assistance and still make their vision a reality.”

On Nov. 8, 2001, the Johnson County Commission reached an agreement — without voting and without allowing public comment — that the county should get out of the nursing-home business.

The action created an uproar. Scores of elderly residents feared eviction before Christmas, and families worried about finding satisfactory alternatives for loved ones.

In the face of fierce opposition from nursing-care supporters, the county backed down and created a plan to keep the 140-year-old center open, while gradually weaning it from public subsidies and removing county control.

The Friends of the Johnson County Nursing Center incorporated as a nonprofit to run the facility. The organization received $1.1 million in startup money from the county, and will get yearly subsidies of $600,000 through 2007.

Attracting nurses, residents

K.J. Langlais, a 22-year proponent of nursing-care reform, was hired as director. Langlais proposed a homelike atmosphere, saying residents should be able to get up when they want, eat what they want and sleep in private rooms and double beds.

Simple changes like low-ply carpet and bright colors residents choose for their own rooms dampen the institutional feel, she said.

But more is needed, Langlais said.

To stabilize the center’s bottom line and improve resident care, Langlais said, she must train high-quality employees who will stick around — a scarce commodity these days.

Simply put, the pay is low and the hours are long.

Nationwide the average annual turnover rate for nurse aides ranges from 40 percent to 250 percent, Langlais said. In the next five years, the Labor Department projects a shortage of 450,000 nurses.

Employee training

Baby boomers are aging and living longer, meaning the need for nursing care will increase. More than half the people age 85 or older — those most likely to need long-term care — will finish their lives in a nursing home, research shows.

“I have yet to meet one person who has any knowledge of long-term care who says this won’t work,” Langlais said. “And I’ve never met one person who has said this isn’t needed.”

The training institute’s first class of 15 students will embark on a one-week, 40-hour orientation course, which is free to employees in good standing at participating nursing centers.

The course is meant to separate facts of aging from the myths, foster discussion of abuse, exploitation and ethics, and teach ways of dealing with difficult patients through role-playing.

Since the nonprofit group took over ownership and operation 10 months ago, the nursing center has received several grants and donations.

An anonymous couple provided a $75,000 gift to renovate and equip training rooms, and a $17,000 grant has come from the Kauffman Fund for Greater Kansas City.

“This new institute has the potential for putting the Kansas City area on the map as a forward thinker for training long-term care staff,” said Deanne Bacco, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care. “This has remarkable potential for being copied regionally or even in every state in the nation.”