Hebrew SeniorLife and Aviv Centers for Living Explore Potential Affiliation

Hebrew SeniorLife (HSL) and Aviv Centers for Living (Aviv), organizations which share a commitment to providing the highest quality health care, communities and support services for seniors, are exploring a potential affiliation designed to enhance and expand care and services for North Shore seniors as well as those who live in comm unities served by Hebrew SeniorLife.
Aviv, a Peabody-based organization, provides an integrated system of care including assisted living, skilled nursing, adult day health, short-term rehabilitation, homecare and geriatric care management.
HSL, a nationally recognized organization and a Harvard Medical School affiliate, is the largest provider of senior care in Massachusetts, serving more than 3,000 residents and patients daily in its six senior living and health care sites around Boston.
“The changes occurring in health care underscore that larger organizations with greater breadth and depth of services will be better positioned to serve patients,” said Eric S. Levy, Chair of the Aviv Board of Directors. “Given this shift, our Board undertook a long-range view in our planning in order to ensure the continuation of Aviv’s mission for generations to come. “ He added, “With this goal, it was only natural for us to look to Hebrew SeniorLife as a potential partner.”
“Aviv and Hebrew SeniorLife are closely aligned in mission, history, tradition and values,” said Jennifer K. Silver, Chair of the HSL Board of Directors. “It makes sense for both organizations to consider ways that we can affiliate.”
The two organizations seek to expand and strengthen their network of partnerships and professional relationships with acute care hospitals and other health care providers, and provide continuity of care for North Shore seniors regardless of where they receive acute care.
“The opportunity to decrease fragmentation in senior care on the North Shore is an important driver behind our exploration with Aviv,” said Lou Woolf, President and CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife. “By improving transitions of care with the acute-care hospitals, we are able to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.”
Hebrew SeniorLife is a preferred provider of inpatient post-acute rehabilitative care for the New England Baptist Hospital as well as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at BIDMC. Under these agreements, HSL and the hospitals work together to ensure improved transitions of care, timely and accurate communication about shared patients, and the best possible clinical outcomes for patients on measures such as decreasing patient length of stay, infections and rehospitalizations, and improved pain management and surgical site care.
Over the coming months, leaders from HSL and Aviv will collaborate to determine the best structure to support a potential affiliation and hope to conclude this process by early 2014.