SKLD Facilities Recognized for Commitment to Quality
SKLD New Lebanon and SKLD New Lexington facilities in Ohio are proud to receive the 2020 AHCA Bronze Commitment to Quality award. This award is the first step in the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program. The award is based on the Baldridge Excellence Framework for healthcare.
Congratulations, to SKLD New Lebanon facility administrator, Alyssa Carter, and SKLD New Lexington administrator, Angela McCord on leading their teams to achieve this award.
Henry Boutros, vice president of Illuminate HC says, “Alyssa and Angela have a solid understanding of what it takes to be competitive and achieve long-term success in our health care environment. The AHCA Bronze Award is yet another reflection of their success as leaders. They have galvanized the focus and efforts of our managers, direct care and support staff.”
As part of this award, both facilities spent extensive time making a deep assessment of their mission, vision and key factors that lead to success. Once applicants are awarded the Bronze level award, they are eligible to use the framework to apply for the prestigious Silver and Gold levels in the following consecutive years.
The team at SKLD New Lexington
Going above and beyond in quality assurance
While all facilities in the industry are required to focus on quality assurance, the AHCA awards recognize those facilities willing to go above and beyond to make data-driven improvements in outcomes, year after year.
Alyssa Carter, the facility administrator at SKLD New Lebanon, says, “Winning this award takes the entire leadership team banding together and digging deep to look at the systems in place and the current data in order to determine where we are compared to our competition and national data. From there, we determined our internal goals and what areas we need to work on.”
Carter says the New Lebanon skilled nursing facility won the award back in 2017 under different ownership, so she went ahead and applied again this year as SKLD. It’s a time-consuming process to apply, but more importantly, it takes a lot of effort to do the work to go above and beyond the industry expectation for quality assurance. “You have to have the drive to do the work and show progress. We are identifying concerns and have a plan to improve them.”
In order to apply for the award, says Angela McCord of SKLD New Lexington, the facility needs to have already achieved positive metrics and outcomes. Once the leadership decides to further the facility’s improvement, the whole team--from housekeeping and activities to dietary and nursing staff--need to band together to improve metrics in their areas of care.
Alyssa Carter with the award for SKLD New Lexington
Getting positive news in this season where skilled nursing facilities world-wide are struggling to battle COVID and deal with social distancing inside facilities was a welcome surprise, says McCord. “It was a blessing to see we had good news in our direction. I’m excited and want to shout it to the world!”