Juneau Nursing Homes Information

Doctors, licensed and registered nurses, certified nursing assistants, non-medical personnel, social workers, therapists, food service workers and specialists serve individualized care to each patient.

The cost of residency at a Juneau skilled nursing facility is among the highest in the nation and higher than the Alaska median level. Semi-private and private SNF rooms cost $23,117 and $23,801 per month, respectively.

Short-term and long-term care are the two main forms of nursing care. Most skilled care centers only provide services for one type of care but some homes cover both types. Some institutions may also have specialized care programs that admit patients with a specific medical condition.

Short-term care delivers rehabilitative services to patients who were recently hospitalized for a fall, stroke, operation, cardiac arrest, aneurism or other acute medical event. A patient’s doctor must authorize a nursing home stay for patients to gain admittance. Quality hospital care can give patients a proper foundation for the rest of their recovery period. Based on patients’ previous hospital experiences, the best hospitals in Juneau are Bartlett Regional Hospital. Under short-term care, patients are evaluated by doctors who design an effective course of treatment. Repairing patients' independence and functioning to pre-event levels is often achieved through occupational, respiratory, physical, speech and auditory therapy. The objective of short-term care is to act as a bridge between hospital care and a lower level of care. Discharged patients often move to assisted living facilities or in home care because they need more medical treatment.

Long-term care fosters a comfortable and safe environment for patients with severe physical or mental impairments like diabetes mellitus, cancer, Huntington’s disease, paraplegia, emphysema and Alzheimer’s. These patients have symptoms that demand complex and elaborate forms of treatment. They may also have conditions that require responsive care and continuous supervision. Long-term facilities have a network of caregivers that administer all types of care to aid every patient. Nurses and doctors monitor patients’ levels of health and perform medical procedures like dialysis, enteral feeding tubes, indwelling urinary catheter care, injections, wound care, tracheostomy care and medication adjustment. Non-medical staff assist patients everyday comfort and hygiene and daily living tasks. Social workers and recreational planners try to give patients as many opportunities as possible to stimulate a health psychosocial well-being throughout the entire facility.

Area SNFs also provide services for patients and their family caretakers. Caring for a loved one at home is a very stressful job that may often require caregivers to forego spending time with other family or doing things for themselves. Respite care allows patients to spend short breaks at a nursing facility, so both parties can relieve some pressure off the relationship. Adult day health care is a great option for caretakers who must go to work but are not comfortable with leaving their patient alone at home. Adult daycare is composed of social and medical components that try to maximize patients’ independence.

Nursing home caregivers must contend with many situations that can prevent them from giving optimal treatment to their patients. Some patients feel they do not belong in nursing care and can make the situation worse by being uncooperative or unresponsive to care. Other times, family members may be caught up in an inheritance or estate dispute and can disagree with the types of treatment the patient is receiving. Well-trained staff understand how to best tackle these challenges so patients can receive the attention they deserve.