Apr 17 2025 | The Benefits of Working Towards a National Quality Award

The American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) has hosted a long-standing opportunity for WHCA member skilled nursing and assisted living providers to reach beyond minimum regulatory requirements towards quality excellence. While many facilities and companies in Washington feature quality care and service at every turn, a strategic methodology to consistently apply the Baldrige criteria to all the facility’s key processes can extend that excellence into positive resident outcomes and overall enhanced staff satisfaction.

The 2024 quality award recipients in Washington included 13 Bronze awards (two assisted livings and 11 skilled nursing facilities) and one Silver award (earned by Clarkston Care Center of Cascadia). These companies opted to dedicate much effort and focus on process evaluation and improvement, likely resulting in much more than the prestigious award.

Research shows that teams who collectively dedicate efforts to continuous process improvement earn fewer state citations during survey. Likewise, buildings with quality awards have better occupancy rates and lower staff turnover. A team of researchers in 2023 demonstrated a decrease in hospitalizations for residents living in assisted livings that had earned Silver and Gold awards, when compared to facilities who had never earned a national award.

While the intent to apply for a national award has passed (it’s open each year in November and closes in January), this is the perfect time to begin thinking about how your facility can grow and strengthen with a collective goal towards quality. In fact, considering an application a year or two in advance offers time to evaluate your systems and processes, make necessary adjustments, and begin collecting necessary data.

The first level of the quality award journey, the Bronze, establishes a commitment to quality. In this application, the facility identifies the basics of overall operation and shares core values, leadership, and key processes that guide its work. This shorter but worthwhile application process prompts deep team evaluation of what works in the facility, and what items and services might benefit from reconsideration. Ultimately, a team working through the Bronze award application will be prompted to determine whether their approaches are systematic and therefore yielding performance results.

The second level of the quality award journey, the Silver, celebrates the achievement of quality. With a robust and well-established team commitment to positive resident and staff outcomes, the applicant takes it a step further by measuring and reporting on systematic improvements in facility operations. This report prompts the facility leadership team to compare their own achievements to other similar facilities. Growing from the Bronze, this lengthy and thoughtful process organizes the facility’s teams into strategic, forward-thinking operations for current and future success.

The third and final level of the quality journey, the Gold, features those elite facilities who attain and maintain excellence in quality. This achievement rewards those few facilities that demonstrate consistency in rigorous quality expectations and achieve ongoing excellent outcomes as a result.

WHY APPLY?

The application process, no matter the bronze, silver, or gold, can be daunting. There are several benefits to the application process:

• An outside perspective. Trained experts volunteer their time to review each application and provide feedback to help you improve.
• Learn from the feedback. The feedback document shares your strengths and opportunities for improvement based on the Baldrige criteria; this feedback can help your team home in on quality improvement efforts.
• Build a strong team. Applying for a national award brings a team together, working on a common goal. This collective work can engage (or re-engage) staff and enhance morale.
• Become more resilient. The application process is more than writing words on paper; it helps create or improve upon systematic processes throughout the organization. This will aid your team in anticipating, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from setbacks and disruptions.
• Boost performance. Recipients of the quality awards demonstrate superior performance in a variety of quality and business metrics.
• Earn recognition. By honoring the successes and quality work of the facility, you can share that success with current an future staff, residents, their families, and external stakeholders.

To learn more about the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Awards program, visit here. If you have questions contact Vicki McNealley (AL) or Elena Madrid (SNF).