ORLANDO, Fla. – In front of a crowd of more than 2,000 people from across the country this month, eight Alabama nursing homes received awards for achievement in health care quality.
Four nursing homes received the American Health Care Association’s (AHCA) Silver – Achievement in Quality Award, and four nursing homes received the AHCA’s Bronze – Commitment to Quality Award. The awards are part of the AHCA’s National Quality Award Program.
Alabama’s Silver – Achievement in Quality Award recipients are: Bill Nichols State Veterans Home, Alexander City; Capitol Hill Healthcare & Rehab First, Montgomery; Mobile Nursing & Rehab Center, Mobile; and Westside Terrace & Rehab First, Dothan.
Alabama’s Bronze – Commitment to Quality Award recipients are: Cypress Cove Care & Rehab, Muscle Shoals; Hanceville Nursing & Rehab Center, Hanceville; Hillview Terrace Rehab Select, Montgomery; and Regency Retirement Village, Huntsville.
“We are very pleased, and it makes us concentrate on quality and trying to do excellence in all things,” Hanceville Nursing & Rehab Center Administrator Donna Guthrie said in a statement to The Tribune. “It’s up to us if we want to apply for the award. There are standards you have to meet. You have to look at your processes and make sure the processes work. It considers your vendors and your relationships with them and how you work with them. We are dependent on doctors, pharmacists, medical supplies, food and it just goes through all areas of what you do.”
The awards were presented during the AHCA’s 70th Annual Convention and Exposition in Orlando, Florida. With the 2019 winners, 79 Alabama nursing homes that have earned the Bronze award, and 13 nursing homes have earned the Silver award.
About the Bronze – Commitment to Quality Award
To earn the Bronze award, skilled nursing care centers develop an organizational profile with fundamental performance elements such as vision and mission statements and an assessment of customers’ expectations. Bronze applicants must also demonstrate their ability to implement a performance improvement system. Trained examiners review each Bronze application to determine if the center has met the demands of the criteria. As recipients of the Bronze – Commitment to Quality Award, the centers may now move forward in developing approaches and achieving performance levels that meet the criteria required for the Silver – Achievement in Quality Award.
About the Silver – Achievement in Quality Award
To earn the Silver – Achievement in Quality Award, nursing homes must demonstrate systematic advancements in quality, plans for continual improvement and sustainable organizational goals. The centers may now move forward in developing approaches and achieving performance levels that meet the criteria required for the Gold – Excellence in Quality Award, which requires them to address the Baldrige Health Care Criteria for Performance Excellence in its entirety.
About the AHCA National Quality Awards
Implemented by the American Health Care Association in 1996, the National Quality Award Program is centered on the core values and criteria of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. The program assists providers of long-term and post-acute care services in achieving their performance excellence goals. The program has three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold.
