The first three senior living communities to earn J.D. Power’s Senior Living Community Certification were announced today:
- Five Star Premier Residences of Hollywood, an independent living, assisted living and memory care community in Hollywood, FL;
- The Horizon Club, an independent living and assisted living community in Deerfield Beach, FL; and
- Five Star Premier Residences of Boca Raton, an independent living and assisted living community in Boca Raton, FL.
The communities earned the honor by passing an evaluation covering approximately 174 operational best practices relating to community mission, culture and structure; licensing and safety; community staff; resident relations; resident services; sales, marketing and move-in coordination; and other factors. Communities also must pass a one-day, on-site audit to be certified.
“We are delighted that the first three senior living communities to achieve this certification are part of the Five Star Senior Living family, and we look forward to building on this success at our communities across the country,” Five Star Senior Living CEO Katie Potter said in a statement.
Newton, MA-based Five Star was the first operator to commit when Costa Mesa, CA-based marketing data and analytics company J.D. Power launched the certification program for senior living communities last year. The program is designed to recognize individual independent living, assisted living and memory care communities that provide customer service deemed to be exceptional and to help consumers make informed decisions when choosing senior living communities.
“J.D. Power is a trusted name with our customers and their families, and this is the first industry-wide benchmarking tool that measures resident satisfaction,” Rob Poyas, Five Star’s vice president of sales and marketing, told McKnight’s Senior Living at the time.
The certification process is conducted in partnership with Andrew Carle, MHSA, a consultant to J.D. Power who is the president of Carle Consulting and an adjunct professor and founding director of the senior housing administration program at George Mason University.
When the program was launched, Carle told McKnight’s Senior Living that its most important effect could be “in the opportunity to take the industry to its next level, by documenting and elevating the resident experience in measurable ways, which goes to the heart of the industry’s mission and philosophy.”
To qualify for certification initially, individual senior living communities must rank in the top 20% in overall customer satisfaction as defined by the J.D. Power Senior Living Satisfaction Study, which the company also introduced in 2018 to capture from residents or their representatives assessments of community performance across 17 performance metrics and 14 performance indicators.
A total of 93 Five Star communities meet this goal, but 90 of them have not completed the audit process yet, J.D. Power said. The company operates more than 270 communities across more than 30 states, according to its website.
Additional operators are pursuing certification, Greg Truex, managing director of global business intelligence for J.D. Power, told McKnight’s Senior Living. The company will announce their names if communities meet the certification criteria, he said.
