I recently returned from the AHCA/NACL national convention and expo, one of my favorite conferences of the year. One reason why it’s a favorite is the recognition of quality in our profession.

There is a 90-minute awards session, recognizing Bronze, Silver and Gold Quality award winners throughout our nation. These are facilities who worked darn hard to achieve quality, measured results, applied for the award, were subject to immense scrutiny using the Baldrige process by a team of examiners, and were awarded for achieving quality. Definitely not an easy feat to accomplish.

There were 399 Bronze winners, 72 Silver winners and two Gold winners. Holy moly! The excitement at the award session was palpable. People cheering, standing, clapping, applauding, some crying tears of joy. It was incredible! 

Now picture this: All of this amazing quality was achieved without having an unfounded, unfunded, unrealistic and unachievable staffing mandate in place. Wow (I say sarcastically), you mean people can achieve quality without meeting impossible staffing ratios? Say it isn’t so! Oh, you mean all those LPNs the government is choosing to ignore in the “study” actually impact quality!

So, while you are writing your response to the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (and make sure you do), use this link. Don’t forget to mention the quality that is achieved daily WITHOUT this stupid mandate!

Just keeping it real (and realistic),

Nurse Jackie

The Real Nurse Jackie is written by Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC, Senior Director of Clinical Innovation and Education for Mission Health Communities, LLC and an APEX Award of Excellence winner for Blog Writing. Vance is a real-life long-term care nurse. A nationally respected nurse educator and past national LTC Nurse Administrator of the Year, she also is an accomplished stand-up comedienne. The opinions supplied here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or her professional affiliates. 

The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.

Have a column idea? See our submission guidelines here.