LECOM Health, the nation’s only osteopathic academic health center, announced its acquisition of another long-term care facility, bringing the total of senior living communities owned by the Pennsylvania-based health and education system to 10.

The health system has been expanding its senior living and care arm, and provides primary care and consultative clinical services to older adults through the LECOM Institute for Successful Aging.

“LECOM Health has introduced the next generation of skilled nursing care for older adults with a Senior Living Center that is bringing together exciting and innovative, patient-centered health care,” the organization’s website states. “Welcome to a whole new approach to wellness, built on care, compassion and community.”

The recent acquisition involves a community formerly known as Elmwood Gardens, which consists of two separate buildings. The skilled nursing facility is now called LECOM at Elmwood Gardens, while the independent living and personal care facility is known as Parkside at Elmwood. 

Elmwood Gardens was bought from Presbyterian SeniorCare Network for $2.065 million, according to Erie County property records and as noted in the Erie-Times News.

Presbyterian SeniorCare officials told the news outlet that the sale of Elmwood Gardens was based on a “worsening financial landscape affecting all aging services providers, including a lack of government resources and reimbursement, as well as ongoing staffing and regulatory challenges.”

This latest deal comes almost exactly one year after LECOM announced the acquisition Independence Court of Erie, an “enhanced personal care facility” that was subsequently renamed Parkside at Glenwood.

Besides the senior living component, with skilled nursing among its assets, LECOM Health also owns Millcreek Community Hospital, Corry Memorial Hospital, and Medical Associates of Erie.

The health system’s senior living is housed under LECOM Institute for Successful Aging and has communities scattered throughout northwest Pennsylvania, including Parkside at Corry and Parkside at Westminster, which provide exclusively independent living, as well as LECOM Nursing and Rehabilitation, LECOM Senior Living Center. It’s LECOM at Village Square provides skilled nursing services.

Additional services of the LECOM Institute for Successful Aging include the LECOM Visiting Nurses Association, Share Care housing, and a multi-specialty geriatric clinic.

Current residents will not be affected by the sale and all staff were extended the opportunity to be retained, LECOM Health said in a press release. The facility, which opened in 1967, has about 100 employees and 70 residents.

LECOM Health has at its core the largest medical college in the United States, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM), established in 1993.

LECOM has trained more than 16,000 health care professionals through its medical school, School of Pharmacy, School of Dental Medicine, School of Health Services Administration and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at campuses in Erie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Bradenton, Florida, and Elmira, New York.

LECOM Health plans to extend services from its various health and wellness entities to its skilled nursing care.