In the news

	Rising Challenger Takes on Elder-Care System By Lucette Lagnado, Wall Street Journal PRINCTEON, N.J. — In the spring of 2001, Bill Thomas, dressed in his usual sweat shirt and Birkenstock sandals, entered the buttoned-down halls of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His message: Nursing homes need to be taken out of business. "It’s time to turn out the lights," he declared. Click here to download the full Wall Street Journal article exploring The Green House Project.
	‘Superstar’ on aging By Tanika White, The Baltimore Sun, When it comes to aging issues, he has been called a visionary, a culture-changer and a prophet. And last week, he became simply Professor Thomas. On Thursday, Thomas began teaching "Aging 100: You Say You Want a Revolution," for freshmen at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Erickson School on Aging, Management and Policy. Continue Reading
William Thomas is a leader in the online Changing Aging movement	Time to change nursing home model By Patty Henetz, The Salt Lake Tribune, With their roots in Dickensian workhouses and modeled on hospitals, nursing homes in many ways have earned the dread of old people, especially those who can still remember the stigma of America’s poorhouses and county homes. “The terror people feel is real,” said geriatrician Bill Thomas, in Salt Lake City on Thursday to boost a new type of long-term care called the Eden Alternative. Continue Reading
Harold Richards, 81, at the senior emergency room at Saint Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor	Emergency Rooms Built With the Elderly in Mind By Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian, The New York Times, The drive to build senior E.R.’s is motivated in part by hospitals’ desire to find an edge in the increasingly competitive health care marketplace. “When you talk about marketing hospitals, there’s a saying that kind of everybody knows, which is, ‘The emergency room is your hospital’s front door,’ ” said Dr. Bill Thomas, a geriatrician who helped open the first senior emergency room in the country. “Among the most vocal users of that front door, and the people who sometimes have the strongest opinions of that front door, are elders.” Continue Reading
William Thomas \| physician, farmer	The Greening of Aging William Thomas \| physician, farmer By Caroline Hsu, U.S. News and World Report It’s summer in upstate New York, the sun is shining, and it’s time to make hay. Bill Thomas, medical doctor, gentleman farmer, and deep thinker, heads out to take the year’s first cutting. His is a "mixed power" farm, which means that the tractor shares the load with a pair of massive 1-ton workhorses. Thomas takes the reins, clucks his tongue, and sets out across the field. Continue Reading
Brenda Rayner with her mother, Barbara Rayner, at Holy Cross Hospital.	Serenity In Emergencies By Beth Baker, The Washington Post, "They’re actually structuring acute emergency services around the needs of the people they’re taking care of, rather than forcing older people to conform to the operations of the hospital," said geriatrician William H. Thomas, a professor of aging studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Erickson School who helped the hospital design the new area. Continue Reading
Dr. James Del Vecchio is medical director of the emergency department at Holy Cross Hospital	An Emergency Room Built Specially For Seniors By Joseph Shapiro, NPR Morning Edition, Only infants go to the emergency department at a higher rate than people 75 and older, according to a recent federal government survey. For years, many hospitals have set up separate emergency rooms just for kids. Now, Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., has set up an ER specifically for patients 65 and older. Continue Reading
Cohoes, N.Y. Green House	Where To Live As We Age By Susan Fine, Parade Magazine, Geriatrician Dr. Bill Thomas, a professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, created The Green House Project with the hope of revolutionizing eldercare. In 2001, he wandered into the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wearing a sweatshirt and Birkenstocks and shared his vision. The foundation was so impressed by his ideas it agreed to support a pilot program. Continue Reading
	AARP’s Guide to Pills The Early Show on CBS Geriatrician Dr. William Thomas discusses the "AARP Guide To Pills," which is a new reference book to help educate seniors on hundreds of prescription and over-the-counter medications.
Dr. Bill Thomas	New age of enlightenment By Mark Gould, The Guardian, Bill Thomas, the charismatic head of a global organisation dedicated to transforming care homes, tells Mark Gould what set him on his mission to eliminate the loneliness, helplessness and boredom that so often blights later life. Continue Reading
Mark, a "shahbaz," or caretaker, and elder Kent	Green House Projects Let Elders Age In Homes Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, April 2, 2009 · In the first program of our ‘What Works’ series, we take a look at nursing homes. Dr. Bill Thomas spent some time in traditional, institutional nursing homes, and he didn’t like what he saw. In an interview with NPR’s Joe Shapiro in 2005, he remarked, "I believe that in the nursing home every year, thousands and thousands of people die of a broken heart. They die not so much because their organs fail, but because their grip on life has failed." Continue Reading
A place to call home	‘Green House’ Nursing Homes Expand as Communities Reinvent Elder Care By Susan Dentzer, PBS News Hour Susan Dentzer reports on the "green houses" project, which seeks to reinvent traditional nursing home care and create close-knit communities of patients and caregivers. Streaming Video