CCC Earns Healthcare Quality Honors

Lompoc Valley Medical Center: Comprehensive Care Center has been recognized by the American Health Care Association for meeting key quality initiative goals. The AHCA, in collaboration with the National Center for Assisted Living, aims to improve the lives of those receiving long-term or post-acute care. The AHCA Quality Initiative is a national, multi-year effort to improve quality of care in long-term and post-acute care centers.

Comprehensive Care Center (CCC) was recognized for its “extraordinary efforts in meeting measurable targets which improve the lives of the people,” it serves, according to the notification from the association. “Your achievement inspires others and invigorates our work here at AHCA/NCAL.”

The CCC is LVMC’s long-term skilled nursing and post-acute care facility, offering personalized, collaborative care to ensure the best outcomes.

“Providing quality care for our residents is at the heart of what we do,” said CCC Administrator Katie Ellis. “To be recognized by the AHCA/NCAL for our extraordinary efforts in measures that improve the quality of our residents’ lives is inspiring. This validates our teamwork, commitment to care and our personal investment in improving the lives of our residents.”

The quality initiative goals attained in order to receive the recognition include: decreasing turnover rates among nursing staff by 15 percent from 2015; uploading of data on customer satisfaction questionnaires to trend-tracking system; reducing the number of unintended health care outcomes; safely reducing the number of hospital readmissions within 30 days; improving discharge back to the community by 10 percent; safely reducing the off-label use of antipsychotics in long-stay nursing center residents by 30 percent and safely reducing hospitalizations among long-stay residents by 15 percent.

The three-year goals for skilled nursing centers are aligned with top priorities for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and federal mandates that link financial outcomes to quality performance.

“Our members are the driving force behind the significant quality advancements our profession continues to make,” said AHCA/NCAL President and CEO Mark Parkinson. “The next phase of the Quality Initiative sets the bar even higher. The goals we have established will improve the lives of the patients, residents and families we serve.”