Sandalwood Wins Major Award for Resident-Centered Care

First Continuing Care Community in the Nation to Receive Award

The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood has been awarded Planetree Bronze Recognition for Meaningful Progress in Resident-Centered Care. The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood is the first health care organization in Colorado to be awarded Bronze-level recognition since Planetree first introduced the recognition level in 2012. They also have the honor of being the first continuing care community in the United States to achieve Bronze-level recognition!   What distinguishes Planetree Recognition among other health care quality awards is its distinctive focus on resident-centered care, defined as a model of care delivery in which health care professionals partner with residents and families to identify and satisfy the full range of resident needs and preferences.  The award is conferred based on a variety of factors, including performance on traditional quality indicators, review of policy documents and, most importantly, how residents and staff assess the organization’s resident-centered culture.  Bronze Recognition was awarded to The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood following a series of focus groups with residents and their loved ones, as well as staff from all disciplines throughout the organization.  Considered collectively, these discussions with residents and staff attested to a genuine culture of resident-centered care.   “The experience of The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood shows what can be accomplished when a team of deeply committed, supremely innovative and highly-driven caregivers take the courageous leap to re-define priorities and re-organize systems to put residents first,” shared Susan Frampton, Planetree’s President.   As a Planetree affiliate, the achievement of Bronze Recognition by The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood is a significant milestone in the organization’s culture change journey, evidencing that effective policies, practices, tools, and systems are in place to meet a broad range of resident, family, and professional health caregiver needs and preferences.   “The whole community is tremendously proud and humbled by this recognition,” said Administrator Angela Byrne.  “It reflects the commitment of every member of Sandalwood to providing the highest level of care each and every day.  It also recognizes the innovation of our organization in finding the means to place the well-being of our guests and residents in the center of all decision-making”.   The program is an extension of Planetree’s established Patient-/Resident-Centered Hospital Designation Program, the only program to recognize excellence in patient-/resident-centered care across the continuum of care and around the world.  Health care organizations awarded Planetree Designation undergo a rigorous process to demonstrate comprehensive implementation and maintenance of patient-/resident-centered care, as captured in more than 50 specific criteria.   The criteria include a shared medical record policy, nonrestrictive visiting practices, opportunities for patient/resident and family input into health center operations, healthy and flexible meal options, recognition of the role of spirituality and the arts in healing, and a physical environment that facilitates privacy, promotes open communication between patients/residents and providers, and is accommodating of family members’ involvement in their loved one’s care. Recognizing that ultimately the patient/resident experience originates with those providing care, several criteria focus on nurturing a work environment that is supportive of staff.   In 2012, Planetree introduced two intermediate recognition tiers—Bronze Recognition for Meaningful Progress in Resident-Centered Care and Silver Recognition for Significant Advancement in Resident-Centered Care, each designed to celebrate organizations that have fulfilled a significant portion of the designation criteria.   “Planetree awards Bronze Recognition for Meaningful Progress in Resident-Centered Care to celebrate organizations’ progress along the culture change journey,” said Frampton.  “In this spirit, we look forward to witnessing how the team at The Rehabilitation Center at Sandalwood builds on this achievement to take its commitment to delivering resident-centered care to even greater heights.”

About Planetree

Founded in 1978 by a San Francisco patient who endured a traumatic healthcare experience, Planetree is an international, not-for-profit organization that partners with health care organizations across the continuum of care to personalize, humanize, and demystify the healthcare experience by putting the needs of individuals first. To achieve this aim, Planetree guides organizations through a structured process that enables and inspires caregivers to transform the health care experience they provide. With its model of patient-/resident-centered care being implemented in a diverse range of hospitals, continuing care facilities, outpatient clinics, and consumer health libraries across the United States, Canada, Brazil, The Netherlands and Denmark, Planetree is demonstrating that patient-/resident-centered care is not only an empowering philosophy, but a viable, vital, and cost-effective model of care.