Annual award recognizes facilities across the nation exhibiting excellence in the delivery of long-term and post-acute care.
Post-acute, long-term and skilled nursing facilities play an essential role in the health care system by supporting patients as they recover and receive ongoing care beyond the hospital.
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) is an organization supporting long-term and post-acute care facilities across the nation in their mission to provide quality care solutions.
As a part of advocating for improved quality of care, AHCA/NCAL’s National Quality Award Program announces awards in three categories annually: Bronze – Commitment to Quality; Silver – Achievement in Quality; and Gold – Excellence in Quality.
Each award level requires an increasingly detailed demonstration of superior performance to earn national recognition, according to AHCA/NCAL. The Gold – Excellence in Quality Award, specifically, recognizes long-term and post-acute care facilities that meet rigorous standards of performance to further improve the lives of their residents.
Three skilled nursing care centers from Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas earned the most prestigious and esteemed Gold – Excellence in Quality Award level of AHCA/NCAL’s National Quality Award Program this year, including Garden Park Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, LLC in Shreveport, Louisiana, NHC HealthCare, Maryland Heights in Maryland Heights, Missouri and Nottingham Health and Rehabilitation in Olathe, Kansas. These three facilities are among the best in the nation, according to AHCA/NCAL’s award criteria.
Striving for excellence
The Quality Award Program is based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, a partnership dedicated to improving the performance and long-term success of U.S. businesses and other organizations in the areas of leadership, strategic planning, customer and workforce, operations and more.
“This award marks a significant milestone in our journey toward system-driven, innovative care. Guided by the Baldrige-based framework, we continuously refine our practices to align with our mission and strategic goals,” said Susan Taylor, Administrator of NHC HealthCare, Maryland Heights. “The recognition validates our focus on continuous improvement and organizational excellence, and it strengthens our resolve to lead with purpose and integrity.”
NHC is a comprehensive senior care facility offering long-term care, short-term rehabilitation and specialized memory care for individuals living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
With a team of skilled professionals, the facility provides care plans designed to meet each resident’s unique needs.
Along with expert care, Silver and Gold Quality Award recipients have an 8% higher performance on hospital readmissions than the national average, and 10% lower registered nurse (RN) turnover than the rest of the nation, according to AHCA/NCAL.
Staff are the foundation of quality patient care and play a significant role in supporting patients to reduce readmissions, improve resident care plans and ensure patient safety.
“Receiving the Gold – Excellence in Quality Award is a tremendous honor that reflects the dedication of our entire team,” said Taylor. “It affirms our commitment to delivering compassionate, resident-centered care and reinforces the trust our residents and their families place in us. This recognition symbolizes our pursuit of safety, innovation, and excellence in every aspect of care.”
Staff and resident impact
Key focus areas of the Quality Award Program include resident and family engagement and satisfaction, strong and effective leadership practices, a team-based approach, the use of data and feedback, proactive evaluation and improvement of processes and proven innovation across each facility.
Garden Park Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, another one of the 2025 Gold – Excellence in Quality Award recipients, is a 160-bed skilled nursing facility located on 26 acres just outside of Shreveport in Louisiana.
“Being named the first recipient in Louisiana of the AHCA/NCAL 2025 Gold Excellence in Quality Award is more than a milestone, it’s a celebration of people,” said Jennifer Peters, Administrator of Garden Park Nursing & Rehabilitation. “For our team it means their passion, skills and relentless drive to improve lives have been recognized at the very highest level.”
Residents and families at each facility are equally grateful for the recognition, as it affirms their quality of care on a national level.
“For our residents, it’s a promise that every day, they will experience not just quality care, but the highest standard of comfort, service and compassion,” said Peters. “They are really proud to live somewhere that achieved a monumental victory, and they know that taking excellent care of them matters to us.”
“Our residents were proud to be part of this journey, actively contributing to meaningful changes and demonstrating that their voices matter,” said Taylor. “Families and community members recognize that while perfection may be elusive, our dedication to evolving and enhancing care is unwavering.”
Ultimately, the Gold – Excellence in Quality Award shapes a culture at each facility where residents feel valued and supported.
“For our residents and families, the Gold – Excellence in Quality Award is reassurance that they are receiving care from one of the best organizations in the nation – not just by the numbers, but because of the culture of compassion and excellence that they see every day,” said Breanna Gregory, Executive Director at Nottingham Health and Rehabilitation.
Nottingham Health and Rehabilitation is a skilled nursing community serving a wide range of patients – from short-term rehabilitation after surgery or illness, to long-term residents who call Nottingham home.
“Our mission is Improving Lives, Exceeding Expectations (ILEE), and that extends across all levels of care,” said Gregory. “We provide private rooms for both Medicaid and private pay long-term care residents, along with specialty rehab services, in a homelike environment where clinical excellence and compassion go hand in hand.”
Quality improvement
The Gold Award recognizes facilities for their patient care driven by sustainable, systematic and effective practices.
In fact, Silver and Gold Award recipients are more likely to be an Overall Five Star Center than facilities in the rest of the nation. To continue to achieve the highest quality care, each facility places a strong emphasis on continuous improvement, ensuring that care evolves with the residents it serves.
“We embed quality improvement goals into our daily routines, so they are never an afterthought but part of our culture. Leaders stay connected to the floor, listening to staff insights and removing barriers that stand in the way of better outcomes,” said Peters. “Most importantly, we tie every improvement back to our mission of ‘Improving Quality of Life’. When everyone understands the ‘why’ behind what we do, quality becomes more than a measure, but a shared purpose.”
A strong focus on continuous improvement has led facilities to see measurable improvements in their daily operations.
“One of our most impactful initiatives has been the creation of our Proactive Innovation Management System (PIMS). Unlike traditional improvement efforts that often react to problems, PIMS is a proactive system where we identify important processes – such as our engagement survey system – and ask how we can improve them, whether there are problems or not,” said Gregory. “For example, by applying PIMS to our employee engagement survey process, we streamlined how feedback is collected, prioritized, acted upon, and communicated back to staff. The result has been higher participation, stronger trust in leadership, and better use of data to guide decisions.”
For NHC HealthCare, continuously striving to perform at a higher level has led to measurable enhancements in several key areas.
“Our pursuit of the Gold Award has led to increased focus on quality measures and data-driven analysis, increased long-term care census, reduction in antipsychotic use among short-term residents, restorative program reboot, strengthened advanced care planning for palliative care patients and much more,” said Taylor. “These outcomes reflect the power of a unified, quality-driven approach and demonstrate our commitment to sustainable change.”
Raising the bar
Ultimately, the vision of each facility once they have received this recognition is to continually strive for more for their post-acute and long-term care facilities in the future.
“Our mission statement is ‘NHC Maryland Heights is committed to being the senior care leader in customer, partner and investor satisfaction,’” said Taylor. “This award is our team’s testament to our partners’ commitment to our mission statement.”
“Whether it’s adopting new care technologies, reimagining resident engagement programs, or discovering new approaches to support families, we know that the best care evolves with the needs of the people we serve and those that serve them,” said Peters.
For Garden Park Nursing & Rehabilitation, The Gold – Excellence in Quality Award affirms that embracing new ideas and a commitment to person-centered care sets their organization apart.
“This Award is a reminder that when your mission is rooted in heart and your values guide every decision that excellence is not just possible, it becomes the standard,” said Peters.
AHCA/NCAL’s mission is to improve lives by delivering solutions for quality care, and that doesn’t stop at a Quality Award recognition.
Facilities must go forward and continue to adapt to the changing healthcare industry, ensure that they are meeting resident’s evolving needs, and support their staff so they are able to perform at their best.
“Achieving Gold is a proud moment, but our journey doesn’t stop here. Our focus now is on sustaining excellence and sharing what we’ve learned with others. We want to continue building a workplace where staff thrive, expand partnerships in our community, and raise the bar for resident-centered outcomes,” said Gregory. “We also see ourselves as ambassadors for quality in long-term care – helping others on their journey to Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Excellence is never a destination; it’s a way of operating every day.”
Recipients of the 2025 Quality Awards will be recognized during the Elevating Excellence Awards Ceremony at Delivering Solutions 25, AHCA/NCAL’s Convention & Expo, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in October.
View the list of all the 2025 Quality Award recipients, available on the AHCA/NCAL Quality Award website, www.ahcancal.org/Quality/National-Quality-Award-Program/Pages/QualityAwardRecipients.aspx.