Baldrige for Long-Term Care/Assisted Living Facilities
To promote performance excellence among its member facilities, the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) introduced the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award in 1996. The Award is modeled after the Baldrige Award and uses the Criteria in one form or another to evaluate applicants at three levels:
- Step 1 applicants basically respond to the Organizational Profile.
- Step 2 applicants respond to questions organized around the 11 Baldrige core values.
- Step 3 applicants write a full Baldrige application (although they’re only given 44 pages to do so, which makes no sense to me)
The ACHA/NCAL award program has done a terrific job of inspiring its member facilities to participate in the program. In 2009, 439 facilities received Step 1 recognition, 26 earned Step 2 recognition, and three facilities (of 19 that applied at Step 3 level) achieved the highest honor. Application deadlines (all applications are online) are the end of February for Step 1 and the end of March for Steps 2 and 3.
This year’s Step 3 award recipients are Madonna Living Community in Rochester, Minnesota; St. Gertrude’s Health & Rehabilitation Center in Shakopee, Minnesota; and ElderWood Health Care at Wedgewood in Amherst, New York.
You can find out more about the program by visiting the ACHA/NCAL National Quality Award Web site.
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