From Buffalo Business First

Jeff Rubin, co-owner of Post Acute Partners, proposes spending more than $585,000 to relocate a 20-bed ventilator unit out of a first floor sub-acute unit at the company’s 200-bed facility in Williamsville.

It’s part of a trend among skilled nursing facilities that are increasing housing rehab patients, a less expensive option than hospitalization, said Dr. Jeffrey Rubin, co-owner.

“We are seeing a lot more admissions from the hospital, including patients coming directly from the ER and assisted living facilities,” he said.

The renovation/relocation project includes installing a piped oxygen system on the third floor in a 5,000-square-foot space currently occupied by long-term care patients. Currently any patient requiring oxygen must be assigned to a room in the sub-acute unit, the only location with piped oxygen in the facility.

According to plans filed with the state Department of Health, additional renovations are planned in the first floor space, where one existing room would be converted into an office.

Owned by Post Acute Partners, the Elderwood network includes close to 20 skilled nursing and residential health facilities in Western New York. Co-owned by Rubin and Warren Cole, Post Acute Partners entered the upstate New York nursing home industry in 2013 with the $141 million acquisition of 19 Elderwood properties. It has since spent millions on expansion and renovations, while adding several sites into its portfolio, part of a plan to invest $40 million into the network.

Rubin said this project continues that commitment and follows recently completed projects on Grand Island, Amherst and an Elderwood facility near Elmira in Waverly. Also underway is a complete renovation of a site in Syracuse. Coming next: A major renovation at Elderwood’s 166-bed facility in Hamburg.

“We’re looking at renovation projects in all of the Elderwood facilities,” Rubin said.

Tracey Drury covers health/medical and nonprofits