WRANGELL – For the second straight month, Wrangell Medical Center’s (WMC) Long-Term Care sits atop the state rankings for nursing home quality, based on an average of 11 quality measures used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). With scores of 4.49 and 3.37 in December 2018 and January 2019, respectively, WMC scored below the CMS national target of 6.0 and well below the state composite scores of 8.5 in December 8.42 in January, besting the 17 other qualified nursing homes in Alaska.
“We have a great team at WMC,” said WMC Administrator Robert Rang. “Our long-term care staff is striving to consistently exceed quality measures for the benefit of our residents.”
WMC Performance Improvement Manager Cathy Gross commented, “WMC’s ranking reflects the hard work and commitment of our staff members. With a maximum population of 14 residents, one resident’s experience could have bumped us over the CMS target score. I’m really proud of our team to have beat the CMS target score in December and then improve in January.”
The measures are collected by Mountain-Pacific Quality Health (MPQH), which is a nonprofit corporation under the direction of CMS. MPQH partners with health care providers, practitioners, stakeholders, and patients on a variety of quality improvement initiatives to achieve better care, better population health and lower health care costs.
“All 18 Alaska skilled nursing facilities are enrolled in a nursing home collaborative, working to improve nursing home conditions for residents,” said Elizabeth Johnson, Quality Improvement Specialist for MPQH. “Congratulations to WMC Long-Term Care for its success.”
Last year, WMC was one of only five nursing homes in the state to be recognized with the Quality Achievement Award by MPQH. WMC also received the Most Improved “Gold Pan” award for having the highest reduction in its overall composite score and was the only long-term care facility in the state to take home multiple Gold Pans in 2018.