Mainstreet CEO Touts New Partnership, Growth
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe founder and chief executive officer of Carmel-based Mainstreet is calling a recent partnership with a high-profile health care expert a "marriage made in heaven." Zeke Turner says Dr. Bill Thomas, who joined Mainstreet Health as director of innovative health care in January, has brought expertise to the company that will help reach its goal of pushing "dignity to the forefront of care of people."
Turner says the opportunity afforded by the partnership with Thomas is to develop health care facilities for people who need long-term custodial care.
"The problem is today, the only option for them is a 40 year-old nursing home, which we think is completely unacceptable. We call it ‘intolerable,’" says Turner. "So our opportunity with Dr. Thomas is to redesign that and to make it something that’s desirable so we can actually care for people with a high level of dignity in beautiful properties throughout the end of their life and that can be anybody of any socioeconomic means."
Turner says Mainstreet is in a massive growth phase with transitional care facilities in 20 states. He says these facilities help patients so they don’t stay in the hospital too long or leave too early and have to go back.
The combination of the planned long-term facilities with short-stay facilities is part of a solution Turner says will end the era of the nursing home. "Both products can go into markets and ultimately make the nursing home obsolete. So in the end when we go into markets, we look at the demand for both of those things and determine where those products can ultimately go."
Turner also expressed frustration with the Indiana General Assembly, which passed a moratorium on new products like what Mainstreet creates. He said he’d love to continue building these types of facilities within his home state.