The American Health Care Association (AHCA) has broadened its Quality Initiative to further improve the quality of care in America’s skilled nursing care centers. The expansion of the Initiative will challenge its members to apply the Baldrige Excellence Framework to meet measurable targets in eight critical areas by March 2018. AHCA’s goal is to reduce the number of unintended health care outcomes, safely reduce hospital readmission, safely reduce off-label use of antipsychotics, safely reduce hospitalizations, increase staff stability, improve discharge back to the community, adopt functional outcome measures, and adopt customer service satisfaction questionnaire and measures.
Specifically, these goals will address the following: the fact that 2/3 of unintended health care outcomes are potentially preventable, reduce the negative physical, emotional and psychological impacts caused by hospital readmissions, prevent adverse events for those with dementia on anti-psychotics, reduce hospital acquired infections, pressure ulcers, weakness and delirium – factors that affect quality of life, the ability to provide consistent staffing in order to deliver person-centered care and respond to each residents personal needs, ensure individuals are discharged back to the community within 100 days, improve functional outcome measures such as self-care and mobility, and ensure the happiness and peace of mind of patients, residents, and their families is being met through a uniform customer satisfaction survey.
Most importantly, Sunrise Terrace has already put efforts in place in order to meet the initiative’s challenges by applying for and receiving the Bronze National Quality Award and joining the Telligen National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative. Sunrise is committed to quality and by taking these steps we will have the tools and resources to meet the needs of our residents.
