A few months ago, my family received a personal reminder of the importance of quality in the skilled-nursing profession. It was delivered as my elderly father was transitioning from a hospital to a nursing home.

With the advancement of his dementia and a few other vexing conditions, my father’s health status had declined quickly. It was obvious to doctors and family members alike that we were acting in his best interests in moving him to a care center where he could receive the support he needed. Yet I will never forget the spooked and bewildered look in his eyes as his stretcher was wheeled out of an ambulance in front of the nursing facility that was to be his new home. And I will never forget how reduced and vulnerable he looked, shivering in a hospital gown in the brisk autumn air, seemingly unable to even ask where we were going.

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