Carleton-Willard wins accreditation

September 23, 2008

Bedford Minuteman

By Chris Klingenberg/Staff Writer
Tue Sep 23, 2008, 02:30 PM EDT

Bedford, Mass. – Carleton-Willard has been awarded a five-year term of accreditation.

Carleton-Willard was the first continuing care retirement community in Massachusetts to become accredited in 1988, and it has been awarded accreditation continuously for the past 20 years. Fewer than 20 percent of the continuing care retirement communities in Massachusetts are accredited.

An organization receiving a five-year term of accreditation has voluntarily put itself through a peer review process and demonstrated to a team of surveyors during on on-site survey that it is committed to conforming to Continuing Care Accreditation Commission-Commission on Accrediatation of Rehabilitation Facilities accreditation conditions and standards. Furthermore, an organization that earns CARF-CCAC accreditation is commended on its quest for quality programs and services. The surveyors were particularly impressed with Carleton-Willard’s innovative new palliative care program Living Fully, Dying Well that provides massage, compassionate touch and music in addition to traditional hospice services.

With the new affiliation with Carleton-Willard Village, both organizations said they would be able to expand the quality of care to individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and improve and promote education about the disease to patients and their families.

“We have been preparing for the on-site review by CARF-CCAC’s trained evaluators for over a year,” CEO of Carleton-Willard Village Barbara A. Doyle said. “The process is a rigorous one, covering every aspect of the community and our organization. We believe it is important to be accredited because of the assurance of quality and integrity that it gives to someone looking to evaluate retirement communities. We are proud that Carleton-Willard has been accredited continuously since 1988, and also proud of the glowing comments we received from the evaluators.”

Carleton-Willard Village is a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community, established in 1982 and located on 72 acres in Bedford.

The Continuing Care Accreditation Commission (CCAC) was founded in 1985 as the nation’s only accrediting body for continuing care retirement communities and similar organizations. In January 2003, CCAC merged with the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), a nonprofit accreditor founded in 1966 that touches close to 6 million individuals served in a range of human service organizations.