"There is an increasing urgency and growing expectation for change in Australia – driven by residents, customers, workers, and regulators alike – to move to a model of care where the priority is the older person’s preferences and staff skills are developed and nurtured. The Green House Project delivers this."

Small, household models of skilled nursing care are not new, but they have been largely overlooked until the COVID-19 pandemic, during which they fared far better than traditional nursing homes. At the same time, a growing body of research shows a multitude of quality advantages over traditional nursing homes.

Private rooms alone won’t remedy nursing home system’s shortcomings. “The Green House model is a lot more than just the building,” says Alex Spanko. “It’s about the culture, too.”

“The only question,” Cook said, “is whether they will take the harsh lessons of the pandemic to heart and implement empowering care models such as Green House — or choose to ignore the experiences of elders and decades of research and build the exact same types of traditional, outdated buildings that failed too many Canadians before, during and after COVID-19.”