Two Harrison Senior Living Communities Receive National Recognition for Improving Quality of Care!

Harrison Senior Living’s two skilled nursing communities, Harrison House of Georgetown and Harrison House of Snow Hill are being recognized by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) for their achievements in the quality of care they provide.  The AHCA/NCAL started the Quality Initiative program as a multi-year effort to challenge long-term care providers to achieve quantitative results in four areas by March of 2021. Both communities earned recognition for their work in two specific areas: Functional Outcomes and Appropriate Use of Antipsychotic Medication.

The focus on functional outcomes is specific to increasing mobility and self-care abilities of those who Harrison Senior Living communities serve – helping them to achieve or maintain a healthy level of independence.  Sharon Raynor, Executive Director for Harrison House of Snow Hill believes, “many people assume that being in a skilled nursing community means that you will lose your independence, our teams work hard every day to ensure that our residents are doing just the opposite and being recognized by the AHCA/NCAL in this area is proof!”

The other achievement both Harrison communities are being recognized for is limiting the use of antipsychotic medications. The challenge to safely reduce the use of antipsychotics in skilled nursing is tough. These types of medications are often given to manage behaviors displayed in residents who have Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.  Executive Director of the Georgetown community, Kori Bingaman, shares, “we believe in closely monitoring the indicated usage of the medication and take a more holistic approach to managing behaviors that our residents might display. We recognize that these behaviors are often a way our residents are communicating with us and take a different approach to caring for or treating them.”

Harrison Senior Living communities remain committed to improving the quality of care they provide and look forward to advancing their recognition to the two other areas being measured by the Quality Initiative, Customer Satisfaction and Hospital Readmission.