The Oregon Caregiver Fall/Winter 2016

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The Oregon Caregiver Fall/Winter 2016 24
PROFILE
Kelly Odegaard has been a nursing home
administrator for over 25 years and
brings his extensive experience in long
term care to the Lebanon veterans' home.
What brought you to the Oregon
Veterans’ Home (OVH) in Lebanon?
This is my second career. When I
came out of college I worked for the Navy.
I was recruited for this position for a
couple reasons. I had experience in
managing construction and design and
opening facilities. Also, I’ve been very
active in culture change since 1997 when
I was part of the group that started
MOVE, and this facility is the epitome
of culture change starting from the
building design up.
Could you share your insights
on the development of the OVH and
how the new complex was designed
specifically for the residents?
The facility is modeled after what
is called a “green house” concept from
the early 1990’s. Out of that came the
“small house” model that the Federal
VA bought into as being an excellent
design to enhance the quality of lives
of the residents and veterans. All new
VA financed Nursing Facilities built
since 2011 must be either a small home
or neighborhood model. The project
followed the design-build model where
changes were incorporated throughout
the entire construction cycle.
What role does the local
community play in the OVH?
The VA paid for 65 percent of the
facility; 35 percent came from state
and local match and there was a huge
community effort to attract this project
here. To support it, Linn County
residents actually voted for a property
tax increase to fund their share of that 35
percent. When we are at full capacity, we
will return about $7.6 million in annual
payroll to our staff that live in this area.
And that’s going right back into this local
economy and into the state of Oregon.
Across the street from us is Western
University of Health Sciences. We work
very closely with them and they have
several students who volunteer with us.
We also have an elementary school on
our border and they bring the students
in here to volunteer and we hope to bring
the veterans into the school. So we have a
very close collaboration with all of these
communities. There is also a community
college nearby, with nursing, CNA, med
techs, etc., who come here for clinical
rotations.
How do you provide unique service
plans to each of your residents?
The veterans have unique needs and
we are still working on addressing their
mental health issues with partners in
the area. One unique training program
we follow is called "Meaningful Life"
which is based on the premise that we
all want to feel unique, important, and
useful. Just because you’re a resident, that
need doesn’t go away. We are rolling this
program out to identify the unique needs
of our residents and design our activities
programs around these needs.
We had a group of veterans go out to the
shooting range and they loved it. We had
one veteran who was legally blind and
severely disabled and we had to help him
hold the gun but when he got it in his
hands he shot every single target. People
Kelly Odegaard
Executive Director of the Oregon Veterans' Home
leader