Friday, March 29, 2024

Cashmere Convalescent Center

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Cashmere Convalescent Center sold for $1.5M
By Mikaila Wilkerson

CASHMERE -- Having been operated for many years by the Dronen family, the Cashmere Convalescent Center Nursing Home was sold to the Wester brothers, Cale and Josh, on the first of this new year.
"We met the Dronens two years ago and we just wanted some kind of family facility and it's been in their family since the beginning," Cale Wester said. "We're a small, family-run company as well and we just have two facilities. So for us, seeing what they (the Dronens) have done and seeing the role they play in the community and everything, it really aligned with our vision as far as being a small, family-run company where we can have a connection with the community."
The Westers are both licensed nursing home administrators who have a lot of experience under their belts.
The nursing home's name has also been changed to the Cashmere Care Center and the company's logo has been revised as well.
"We put 'care' in the center and that's where it should be - resident centered care," Lexy Lieurance, the center's licensed nursing home administrator, said. "What do our residents need? If we think of them as our best friends, how would we care for our best friends? That's our approach because that's really what Cashmere is about; we're neighbors and we're friends."
Lieurance manages the daily operations of the center and reports to the Westers.
Having gotten a degree in gerontology, Lieurance has combined business administration and gerontology throughout the years. Since the age of 16, Lieurance has been a nursing assistant and has been working at the nursing home since November.
"It's really my passion," Lieurance said. "I'm excited to be here."
Serving the community is a top priority for those at the center as they emphasize on wanting to keep family as the main focus of the facility.
"I think one of the things that Josh and Cale were attracted to, like they said, was the Dronen family and making it a family business," Lieurance said. "Going from one family to another. It's not a corporation, it's not a nameless, faceless situation. We're all right here, we're very accessible and we're all people who have been in health care for a long time."
The Cashmere Care Center currently has 60 residents, but they are licensed for 65 beds altogether.
According to Lieurance, the nursing home has four specific care neighborhoods. One works with memory care, two deal with rehabilitation and the last one focuses on expanded health care services.
"That (expanded health care) is a specialty of caring for people that maybe had Down Syndrome and now they're aging," Lieurance said. How do we handle that when somebody has dementia or Alzheimer's? What about somebody who has obsessive compulsive disorder and they were functional and now they've gotten to be a senior and they're fighting some other processing problems with aging? How can we help them through those hurdles of aging?"
Lieurance worked as an administrator in Chelan for six years and knew Chuck Dronen for quite some time. She reflected on how Dronen had called her up one day to let her know that he was planning on selling the nursing home and had invited her to get onboard with the center.
"As time goes on I'm looking forward to being active in community events," Lieurance said. "I was active with the Lake Chelan Rotary for many years so maybe we'll be involved in Rotary or the Chamber, or other ways that we can give back to the community because I think that's really important."
Lieurance would also be open to bringing intergenerational programs to the center sometime in the future.
"I'd maybe have some of the high school students come and do some work here," Lieurance said. "At one facility I was at years ago we had our seniors from our senior class adopt seniors at the nursing home and they threw a senior homecoming and prom. So we had a senior king and queen at the nursing center. I had the students come and for a lot of their English and history papers they interviewed the seniors so it was really cool to do that. Maybe we'll have something like that here."
According to the Chelan County Assessor's Office website, the sales price was $1.5 million.
 

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