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ICC is offering to the medical community nationwide a successful model of efficiency in healthcare through cooperation of private enterprise, county government, regional education and public health programs. "It's a brilliant tactic for public-sector survival in this health-care marketplace," observed Denise Martin, chief executive on the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. "If we don't adopt private-sector, competitive strategies, we won't survive," she told the Wall Street Journal. The creative genius driving the partnership is Moreno Valley resident and businessman, Dr. Carl Rowe, director of Integrated Care Communities (ICC). When health officials in Riverside County proposed linking the newly completed state-of-the-art Riverside County Regional Medical Center with an adjacent 60 bed skilled nursing facility in the future, the opportunity attracted industry behemoths such as Beverly Enterprises, Karell Capital Ventures, Unified Care Services, Western Care Construction and Platt Management Corporation. "This is one of those few projects you get over a lifetime," said County Health Director Ken Cohen. "You look for a win-win. But this is a win-win-win-win." But to Riverside County officials' credit, they insisted on hearing new ideas. The best proposal, they decided, came not from the industry leviathans but from a relatively small firm equipped with progressive theories and practical high-tech approaches - Integrated Care Communities. The fact that Dr. Rowe has a spotless, decade-long record of operating nine area homes for the developmentally disabled was to his credit as well. The ICC concept developed by a relatively small but well seasoned management team of health professionals, government planners and entrepreneurs, was endorsed by the health officials in Riverside County as superior to proposals put forth by several giant corporations in the nationwide business of long-term healthcare. The ICC partnership promises to deliver better service to clients by creating an entirely new environment of highly efficient integrated care in the industry. "Riverside County has taken the lead in proposing a creative, fresh approach to coming healthccare crisis" observed Dr. Carl Rowe, director of the project for ICC. "It is exciting for me, as a healthcare professional, to witness the power to create positive results when government leaders and private entrepreneurs focus together on creating lasting solutions for public benefit. "Equally exciting is the cooperation of these various groups and the growing awareness that the future of healthcare should be crafted in remembrance of the way America once cared for their fragile young and old people," Rowe continued. Integrated Care Communities is a timely response to the growing need for integrated, long-term medical care nationwide. Americans over the age of 65 are expected to double to nearly 70 million by the year 2030, driving cost of chronic medical care to a staggering $798 billion. "Clearly, the demand for new efficiencies in health care will continue to increase sharply," stated Dr. Rowe. At the same time, attitudes toward long term healthcare are changing. People want care emphasizing wellness in a cheerful environment rather than dreaded incarceration in a nursing home. "Too often long-term care is equated with time spent dying. Integrated Care Communities is deliberately designed as a homage to life, a place where time is spent living, healing and reflecting on a life well spent," says Dr. Rowe. The greatly feared isolation of guests from loved ones that occurs in many older skilled nursing facilities, for instance, will be banished at ICC as all guest rooms will be wired for live video intemet linkage with friends and loved ones. A plan is being implemented to successfully launch this long-term medical care campus on the grounds of Riverside County Regional Medical Center, on 8.79 acres northeast of the hospital. The location will provide enormous unique advantages to both facilities and all the entities involved - especially the ICC guests and their families. Development money will primarily be raised through gb tax-exempt bonds to be guaranteed by the Federal Housing Adminstration (FHA). The partnership is also seeking equity investors who may be interested in an opportunity that offers excellent tax exempt yields with bedrock security. The proposed lease term on the property is 30 years, after which the partnership will own the property. The project will be built by Germania Construction, owned by Bob Wolf of Moreno Valley. "A cooperative partnership like this has never been attempted before in the nation," said Rowe. "Integrated Care Communities feels very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to help make this happen." The cooperative agreement between the Riverside County Regional Medical Center and ICC will provide the nation with a new model .of efficiency and one stop approach to long-term care: By sharing health services and revenues the cooperative project will integrate needs of the patients and employees with community, government and educational resources. Ultimately this effort will result in maximizing g client health care quality while reducing overall County health service costs. The ICC facility, situated just 120 seconds away from the world class regional medical center, offers a continuum of care choices as part of a holistic one stop approach to long-term care: a 60-bed skilled nursing facility, disease-specific assisted, living facilities, 70 occupant adult day health care center, a child day care center that caters to the needs of both healthy and sick or disabled children, and a Medical arts office building offering a home health agency, wellness center and out-patient rehabilitation center. Integrated Care Communities is expected to support more than 170 permanent, full-time health career positions. As a site for advanced medical training, ICC will provide top students from area colleges and universities with an excellent opportunity to apply the most successful medical treatments available. This means ICC will both support and benefit from the best that cutting-edge medical training can offer. The cooperative nature of this integrated facility proposes to eliminate several difficulties related to long-term care. A major benefit to families will be swift and seamless transition to changing levels of appropriate medical care. At ICC elderly guests will no longer be forced to shuttle from one location to the next across many miles in order to seek the level of care they need - it is all in one location. The varying needs of guests can be accommodated smoothly in this new facility, creating an atmosphere of worry-free living. For some families long-term care results in tremendous frustration with a complicated and poorly coordinated system involving multiple govemment agencies, insurance companies and HMOs. At ICC. those complications. delays and increased costs are also eliminated because services at ICC are consolidated in one location, providing much greater efficiency and conve-nience for bills and invoices from HMOs and insurance companies. ICC represents the enormous opportunities emerging for those willing to invest in viable responses to the rapidly rising demand for facilities and services in the long term healthcare market.