TAHLEQUAH—Applications are now being accepted for a program designed to keep people in their communities rather than nursing facilities.

The new Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly is a program for people age 55 or more who are eligible for nursing home care.

It is offered through a partnership of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, Cherokee Nation Elder Care and the federal centers for Medicare and Medicaid services.

“This is the first one in Oklahoma,” said George Foster, dean of the College of Optometry at Northeastern State University who also is with the Cherokee County Health Service Council. “There are 42 PACE locations in 22 states. It is the first one allied with a Native American tribe, and it’s one of the few located in a rural area.”

PACE, based at the Cherokee Nation Elder Care Center in Tahlequah, will provide comprehensive health-related and social services to seniors who qualify. The program is intended to offer participants the support and assistance that will allow them to remain in the community.

PACE members will be taken to the day center about two to three days a week, where a team of health care professionals will develop individual care plans and provide many services on site. Participants receive preventative, primary, acute and long-term care services, including therapy, social services, nursing and personal care.

Foster said the council has helped PACE with planning and collaboration between agencies.

“From the community’s point of view, if we have any compassion for those whose mileage is showing up but their economic areas meet the criteria, this to me — spiritually, physically and emotionally — it’s a significant benefit to those people rather than having to go to an institutionalized nursing home,” he said.

Foster predicted PACE will be a “marvelous thing” for the individual elderly person and their caregiving family.

“The bottom line is, we can keep those people out of nursing homes, which is a very highly expensive cost money-wise and quality-of-life-wise as a social contract to the people who live in the United States,” he said.

Foster also praised the Cherokee Nation for its help in getting the program going.

“Thankfully the Cherokee Nation with their finances have been able to create the building, create the staff, create the program and work on all the local, state and national requirements to have such a program,” he said. “But it’s a national program, not a tribal program.”

Foster said the government is opening PACE facilities to help deal with the health care crisis.