SHERBURN — Temperance Lake Ridge in Sherburn recently earned the Bronze Quality Award from the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living.

Lisa Lange, executive director of the facility, said that every year standards are established to obtain the award.

“I don’t like saying ‘win’ it; it’s earn it, really,” she said.

The two biggest things Temperance Lake Ridge worked on and achieved were decreasing hospitalizations and decreasing staff turnover.

The facility had to turn in a detailed report that showed it had met each standard, and also showed how.

In 2015, Temperance Lake Ridge saw an increase in rehospitalizations, but over the next few years it worked on bringing the number down. It went from 38 rehospitalizations in 2015 to only four in 2018.

One of the things it did was to work with Dr. Tim Bachenberg, who began visiting Temperance Lake Ridge to perform rounds once per month, and then once per week.

“We also worked to decrease staff turnover,” Lange said. “In the industry, it’s high. The average staff turnover is 50 percent every year. Currently, we’re at 20 percent and have been stable there.”

Temperance Lake Ridge has 42 staff members, and Lange credits the site’s success to them.

“This isn’t about the management just doing a good job,” she said. “This takes all of the staff. The core of the core of Temperance Lake Ridge has to do with the staff that works on the floor. They’re the ones that see and work with our tenants every single day. They’re the ones that work with family members. If they did not provide compassionate, quality care, we would not have the excellent word of mouth [reputation] that we do. If we didn’t have staff members that worked together as a team, we would not be successful either.”

Next, Temperance Lake Ridge will go for the silver award, which is much more involved, with higher standards.

However, the facility’s leaders are not downplaying the bronze award. This week, Lange will go to the 70th annual AHCA/NCAL convention and expo in Orlando, Fla., where she will accept an award and recognition on behalf of Temperance Lake Ridge.

She explained that in order to obtain the bronze award the facility had to show it provides quality care to the area, and meets the needs of the community. Temperance Lake Ridge has shown this through its current expansion project.

“We had always had a huge waiting list and we were turning away people in our area,” Lange noted. “We added an expansion five years ago but are in the process of adding another to meet those needs.”

The expansion will include an addition of 14 memory care units, on top of the 14 that the facility already has.