Abraham E. Andrade obtained his certification as a Nurse’s Aide in 2007. Soon after, Abraham  scheduled himself to work extra hours for two Skilled Nursing Facilities over two years and quickly experienced the challenges with the recruitment, development and with retention of talented staff.

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Although Mr. Andrade continued to be a caregiver at heart, he eventually felt he could make a greater contribution for the residents in his care by helping with the recruitment, hiring, and retention of compassionate individuals. In 2008, Mr. Andrade accepted a job as a Staffing Coordinator & Human Resources Assistant for a rural Skilled Nursing Facility in Silverton Oregon. He quickly built a reputation for the facility in the local nursing communities and attracted talent to form a strong and caring nursing team.

between 2009-2010 Mr. Andrade was nominated by residents, families and Staff as a Marquis Companies Legend and received the Legends Award. 

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After filling every open position at the facility, Mr. Andrade realized that having a fully staffed schedule was not enough to ensure the best care for his residents. Mr. Andrade learned that any success in healthcare was dependent on attracting, developing and retaining talented and compassionate Care Staff. This realization and his constant desire to do more for the people he cared for, inspired him to return to his academic journey and to focus on developing his leadership knowledge and skills.  

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Mr. Andrade earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 2014. He completed his AIT program a few months later under a seasoned administrator and a dedicated team in Stayton Oregon. Mr. Andrade became a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator that same year.

 

From October of that year to April 2017, Mr. Andrade worked as the Executive Director responsible for the operation of a 76-bed center in Eastern Oregon, which included a Skilled Nursing Unit as well as a Gero-psych / Enhanced Care Unit. He later certified part of the facility as a Memory Care Unit. 

 

In his role, Mr. Andrade re-built the confidence of the community in their local nursing home. He worked closely with the local critical access hospital, knew every case worker, every physician, and formed a positive and productive relationship with nearly every staff member in the local hospitals and clinics. He then facilitated the development of positive relationships between multiple communities' key stakeholders.

 

Mr. Andrade's work and influence effectively contributed to developing the continuum of care across many Eastern Oregon communities, thereafter, connecting them to Acute providers in multiple states. He would travel out of state into Idaho and the Tri-Cities WA. where community members would spend weeks, sometimes months rehabilitating away from their home after a hospitalization, planned orthopedic surgery or while receiving acute wound treatment. Mr. Andrade would remind hospitals and providers that being close to home, family and community in the process of healing, recovering and aging is essential.  Consequentially, these efforts increased SNF service demand (census) and job opportunities for the community, however, Mr. Andrade continued witnessing the migration of talented healthcare professionals seeking further scholastic and professional development outside of the rural eastern Oregon communities. in 2015, Mr. Andrade began developing relationships with high schools, colleges and education programs, specifically, with the Nursing programs which had suspended their CNA classes in prior years.

 

"Collaborating with organizations such as Blue Mountain Community College and Eastern Oregon University created an initiative to keep healthcare professionals working in Eastern Oregon, focusing on promoting the current scholastic opportunities, job opportunities and career ladders available. We began developing links to increase resources and help address the shortage of providers in the rural communities". 

 

Mr. Andrade also worked closely with the Oregon Department of Human Services. He developed effective collaborative professional relationships with case workers to ensure the aging and the vulnerable population in Eastern Oregon received the help they needed.   Mr. Andrade maintains healthy and strong relationships with local, county and state leaders in those areas. 

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Mr. Andrade describes his least favorite part of what he does as "a natural part of what is also very exciting"... The inevitable transitions healthcare professionals must make when they continually want to serve people better and do more for them. "Accepting that the time has come to move on from a job, a position and a community you dedicated yourself to is bittersweet to process". 

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Mr. Andrade joined the Oregon Veterans' Home Lebanon Team as the Assistant Administrator in April of 2017. His role as Assistant Administrator provided many opportunities to contribute such as, becoming a Quality Award Examiner for the American Healthcare Association and achieving the bronze and silver awards. His proficiency as an ACHA/NCAL Quality Award Examiner was essential to the Oregon Veterans' Home Lebanon national recognition awards as well as much of the national praise received for their exemplary organizational model. The home was also consecutively recognized by Best Nursing Homes by U.S. News & World Report. 

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Mr. Andrade's consistent performance rewarded him with a promotion to Administrator CEO for the Oregon Veterans' Home Lebanon in 2019.

 

Some of Mr. Andrade's accomplishments and contributions at the Oregon Veterans' Home included: 

 

Collaborating with the Registered Dietician to restructure the facilities diet texture and train associated staff training over several months.

Fine-tuning the Dinning, Environmental, Laundry, and Transportation operations for optimal quality integrations and fiscal performance. 

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Mr. Andrade maintains a reputation and was recognized for commanding an excellent knowledge of the significant number of regulations Skilled Nursing facilities operate under.

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He was assigned the task of developing systems and programs to comply with the new Requirements of Participation. To highlight, Mr. Andrade created the facilities' first comprehensive Facility Assessment, Hazard Vulnerability Assessment and developed an impressive Grievance Reporting and Grievance Resolution Process. He also collaborated with department directors to develop programs, policies and procedures to maintain regulatory compliance with Trauma informed Care, QAPI, reporting requirements, etc. the survey team found these programs to be exemplary.

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When the Veterans' Home Lebanon became the first SNF in Oregon to have a Covid outbreak, Mr. Andrade led his team through the unknown and everchanging landscape that has become our world since then.

He and his team crafted strategies and approaches from scratch, wrote numerous policies and procedures in response to both clinical need and a constantly evolving regulatory environment. The State of Oregon's Health Agency praised the team for developing and implementing "the gold standard of infection control". 

 

Often, the policies and procedures developed by Mr. Andrade and his team were written months ahead of State and Federal agencies addressing, the same issues.

 

Mr. Andrade passed multiple Infection Control inspections with no deficiencies. 

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Mr. Andrade is a creative and quality oriented individual. He acted as a certified examiner for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award program. He used the Malcom Baldridge Quality Award Criteria as a foundation for the development of systematic and evidence-based approaches. Specifically, Mr. Andrade developed evidence-based processes for auditing quality improvement programs and fiscal compliance audits that were reviewed and praised by third-party auditors for their reliability. 

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Mr. Andrade participated in the development and management of multimillion dollar operational budgets including forecasting, developing, presenting and managing large million-dollar capital expenditure budgets.

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During his service as CEO Mr. Andrade and his team maintained resident and customer satisfaction ratings above national industry averages in key areas of care and quality including many "Best in Class" ratings.

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Mr. Andrade was responsible for internal and external complaint investigations and was directly involved in resolution plans as well as developing effective plans of correction as needed. His systematic approach to anticipating potential concerns and to reach resolutions provided proven satisfactory outcomes and results. 

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Mr. Andrade led many successful performance improvement team projects where he ensured all stake holders including direct care staff, Residents families and all key stakeholders were included. Mr. Andrade was instrumental in developing many fundamental quality improvement programs still used at the facility to date.

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Mr. Andrade believes in continuing education, personal and professional development and investing in advocacy for enhanced legislative support, for better care and for better outcomes.  

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Mr. Andrade has learned that his true passion is seeing others succeed and his mission is to support people's growth and development any way he is able. Mr. Andrade is approved by the Oregon Health Licensing Board to be a Preceptor for developing leadership. 

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"My compassionate, rational, quality oriented, and direct approach have helped me earn the trust of individuals within teams to reach impressive collaborative successes."

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