Lakeview Christian Home Earns National Honor for Quality Care

By R. Gabriel Villalobos

Lakeview Christian Home has been awarded the prestigious Silver Award by the American Health Care Association, placing the local nonprofit among the elite long-term care facilities in the country.

The award is part of a rigorous, three-tiered quality program based on the Malcolm Baldridge criteria, and for CEO Jody Knox and her team, it validates a years-long commitment to innovative, compassionate care—a commitment they are now channeling into an ambitious bid for the program’s top honor.

“We are very honored to get this award,” Knox said. “And then we’re very, very excited and committed to moving forward.”

The journey began with the Bronze Award in 2023, which Lakeview earned by tackling a critical issue in dementia care: the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications. Knox explained that these powerful drugs are often prescribed to manage behavioral outbursts in dementia patients, but they can cause severe side effects like dehydration, loss of appetite, and increased falls.

“They cause people to become dehydrated, quit eating, just basically regress really badly,” Knox said. “It’s just not appropriate.”

Through a focused initiative and a specialized training program, the facility educated its entire staff on alternative, person-centered approaches to dementia care. The result was dramatic.

“Ours was 26.1%,” Knox said, referring to their usage rate. “Today, we’re at zero. We don’t allow antipsychotics in this building unless they’re appropriately used.”

Achieving the Silver Award required the facility to look even deeper, submitting a detailed application that scrutinized everything from leadership and financial processes to community partnerships and strategic planning. Lisa Aguilar led the effort, but Knox emphasized it was a facility-wide undertaking.

“It took the whole team working together,” Knox said. “It took people from the financial end…the regulatory side, just all of us working together to apply and really show who we are, what we stand for.”

The award was formally presented at a national convention in Las Vegas, NV, in October before an audience of thousands of peers. Out of approximately 14,000 skilled nursing facilities in the association, Lakeview was one of a select few to receive the silver honor.

For Knox, the award underscores the advantages of being a standalone, nonprofit facility guided by a Christian mission.

“We get to drive the mission,” she said. “It doesn’t come from some corporate building somewhere in America. It’s us.”

This local control, supported by an engaged board of directors, allows Lakeview to be nimble and deeply focused on the needs of its residents and staff. Knox believes this creates a unique atmosphere.

“It feels safe. It feels encouraging. It lifts each other up,” she said. “I think that is a huge advantage that we have.”

That culture of excellence and support is key to the next goal: the Gold Award. The facility faced a November 13 deadline to apply for the highest level, a distinction so demanding that only three facilities nationwide achieved it this year.

The Gold Award process includes an on-site visit during which examiners interview staff at every level to ensure the facility’s standards of excellence are fully ingrained in its culture.

“It has to permeate at every level in your organization,” Knox said. “It might be a maintenance worker that comes into the room…he has to know how to deal with someone with dementia. If you’re in the dining room, you have to be able to have those tools. So, it’s everybody in your whole organization.”

With a career dedicated to elder care, Knox, who will turn 67 soon, sees this as a pivotal moment.

“I told my staff, if we’re going to apply for the gold, we’ve got to do it now. I’m not going to be here forever,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know if we’ll get it the first year, but we will get it eventually. But we’ve gotta get it before I retire.”

Despite the challenge, the entire team is motivated. For them, the national recognition is a welcome confirmation, but the real reward is the day-to-day mission of serving the Carlsbad community. “We’re proud of the job we’re doing,” Knox said.