Highlands Living Center Administrator Earns National Award
The American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA) this month honored Highlands Living Center administrator Kathy Grimes with the Eli Pick Facility Leadership Award. The award, named in memory of a visionary ACHCA member, recognizes administrators whose teams have achieved exceptional organizational quality.
Grimes was among 248 recipients honored for providing exemplary leadership to their respective organizations. To earn recognition, administrators must have achieved exceptional results on three years of skilled nursing facility surveys, including high scores for quality, safety and customer satisfaction with a minimum of 80 percent facility occupancy during the three-year period of review.
ACHCA considers a facility’s excellence as a direct reflection of leadership excellence. The organization focuses on advancing leadership excellence through professional education and certification to administrators from across the spectrum of long-term care.
“This is an exciting time to be an administrator in long-term care given the continued national efforts toward person-centered care, regulatory changes, value-based purchasing and quality improvement,” Grimes said. “We are proud to have achieved top quintile recognition from the New York State Department of Health Quality Initiative program for the second consecutive year. The nation’s 16,000 nursing homes are in significant transition to more complex and quality-driven care for the individuals we serve.”
Grimes joined Highlands Living Center in 2011 after serving 20 years at Thompson Health in Canandaigua, N.Y. , most recently as executive director of senior living operations. She holds a business administration degree from SUNY Empire State College, in addition to being a licensed nursing home administrator and certified aging services professional. Grimes also works with administrators-in-training as a preceptor for the New York State Department of Health.
An accomplished professional, Grimes serves on the Board of Examiners for the national Baldridge Performance Excellence Program and as a Master Examiner for the American Health Care Association’s National Quality Award. Her professional memberships include the American College of Healthcare Administrators, New York Association of Long Term Care Administrators and the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Highlands Living Center is a skilled nursing facility at The Highlands at Pittsford. Affiliated with the University of Rochester Medical Center, The Highlands at Pittsford is Rochester’s only university-based retirement community with all levels of senior care on one campus.