Northern Mahaska Specialty Care selected for national quality recognition

Northern Mahaska Specialty Care Administrator Tabitha Tjaden is second from right.

Northern Mahaska Specialty Care has been selected for the American Health Care Association (AHCA) Quality Initiatives Recognition Program. The Quality Initiative Recognition Program honors AHCA-member skilled nursing centers that demonstrate the attainment of four or more of the following AHCA Quality Initiative goals: 

• Decrease turnover rates among nursing staff 
• Adopt Core-Q customer satisfaction questionnaire
• Reduce the number of unintended health care outcomes
• Safely reduce the number of hospital readmissions within 30 days
• Improve discharge back to the community by 10%
• Improve functional outcomes by 10%
• Safely reduce the off-label use of antipsychotics in long-stay nursing center residents by a total of 30%
• Safely reduce hospitalizations among long-stay residents by 15%

Nursing centers receiving the recognition were honored at the AHCA/NCAL Quality Summit in New Orleans, March 12-14, 2018.