AHCA/NCAL Announces ‘Enhanced’ Quality Department

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) announced Tuesday that David R. Gifford, MD, MPH, will be joining the association as Senior Vice President of Quality and Regulatory Affairs to lead its internal quality department.

Gifford will head a new, enhanced department that oversees current quality initiatives, such as Quality First, Keeping the Promise, and the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Awards Program. He also will develop new programs to help association members provide person-centered care and work closely with the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

“We are making remarkable strides in quality—unquestionably the most important focus of long-term care,” stated AHCA/NCAL President and CEO Mark Parkinson in a release. “Dr. Gifford will help us further those strides and brings with him decades of experience and a commitment to the future of quality care that cannot be matched.”

Gifford has served as the director of the Rhode Island State Department of Health since March 2005, where he led efforts to revamp the nursing home survey process to promote resident-centered models of care, according to AHCA. He previously served as chief medical officer for Quality Partners of Rhode Island where he directed CMS’ national nursing home-based quality improvement effort. He is a board certified geriatrician who has devoted most of his career to nursing home quality and understands the needs of nursing home residents, AHCA said in a release.

Gifford currently serves as council chair for the National Quality Forum’s Public & Community Health Council and is a member of the National Commission on Prevention Priorities. He also is a clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and Community Health at the Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine.

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