Two Life Care facilities earn Bronze National Quality Awards for 2022

This year, two Life Care Centers of America facilities – Life Care Center of Vista, California, and Life Care Center of the North Shore in Lynn, Massachusetts – earned Bronze National Quality Awards from the American Health Care Association.

National Quality Awards honor facilities across the nation that have demonstrated their commitment to improving quality of care for seniors and persons with disabilities. Bronze is the first of three tiers of recognition (followed by Silver and then Gold) by AHCA/NCAL. Each requires a detailed application process submitted to a board of examiners for review.

In addition to giving an overview of their facility and organization, each applicant for the Bronze Award shares an area of improved performance.

For Life Care Center of Vista, the nursing team implemented a higher level of wound care and monitoring, including weekly skin assessments and a turning program. Between May and December 2021, the facility significantly reduced new wounds and increased healing of existing wounds.

“All credit to those nurses because they worked really hard to achieve this,” said David Tanner, executive director at Life Care Center of Vista. “With the Bronze Quality Award, it’s nice to get some recognition for them for the work they have done.”

Life Care Center of the North Shore’s performance improvement project centered on decreasing the use of antipsychotics during 2021. The facility instituted behavioral health meetings with social workers and activities associates, as well as the residents’ physicians or nurse practitioners, to find non-medicinal ways to address residents’ behavioral issues.

“It feels good to have achieved this,” said Carla Ciaramella, executive director. “Coming out of COVID, it’s nice to spotlight that we’ve been able to maintain and improve on our quality of care in spite of the challenges of the pandemic.”

Congratulations to the teams at both facilities! Life Care is proud of the work you do and your dedication to our residents!