Aase Haugen and Wellington Place recognized by national group

Five NE Iowa assisted living centers—including Aase Haugen Senior Services and Wellington Place in Decorah—have been recognized by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living for reaching quality initiative goals.  Evans Memorial Home in Cresco, New Hampton Nursing & Rehab in New Hampton and Postville Good Samaritan Center in Postville are also being presented the AHCA Quality Initiative award.

AHCA measures eight key areas which are top priorities for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Accountable Care Organizations and Managed Care Organizations, and are aligned with federal mandates. "One measure is to reduce hospital readmission within 30 days," says Aase Haugen Senior Services Administrator Jeffrey Schmidt, adding, "This is important because we always want to consider the negative physical, emotional, and psychological impacts on individuals in skilled nursing care and costs associated with that care."

The seven other key areas measured by the AHCA are decreasing turnover rates among nursing staff; adopting and using a customer satisfaction questionnaire; reducing the number of unintended health care outcomes; improving discharge back to the community; improving functional outcomes; safely reducing the off-label use of antipsychotics; and safely reducing hospitalizations among long-stay residents.