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Tarrah Quinlan joined NYSHFA | NYSCAL in October 2020. Tarrah is a Registered Professional Nurse with over 20 years’ experience in multiple health care settings, specializing in long-term care. Most recently, Tarrah served as the Director of the Bureau of Quality Assurance and Surveillance at the New York State Department of Health. Prior to serving as Director, Tarrah served in several key long-term care positions within the Department of Health and in the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General. Tarrah has an extensive background in policy development, operations, quality control, and regulatory compliance in skilled nursing facilities. Her passion and visionary perspective have earned her leadership positions in quality assurance and surveillance of nursing homes, Medicaid managed care plan contracting and oversight, and conduction of Medicaid audits. Early in her career she held a supervisory role within a county nursing home and has experience in the acute setting specializing in pulmonary patient care.  Ms. Quinlan has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Russell Sage College, is Patient Review Instrument (PRI) and Screen certified, MDS 3.0 proficient, and has completed health care surveyor training from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Tarrah’s experiences working across the healthcare continuum with staff and facility leaders have shaped her positive approach to the value of enhancing local, state, and national partnerships to achieve regulatory compliance and accreditation and to build strong quality improvement practices with providers.

Christina joined NYSCAL as Executive Director, November 2023. Christina’s healthcare journey began with her academic pursuits, having earned a Bachelor of Science in Health Studies with a Concentration in Pre-Med from Monmouth University. She further specialized with a Master of Health Care Administration from Utica College.

For the decade prior to joining NYSCAL, Christina served as an Executive Director for Assisted living and prior to this as a LNHA. Christina spent the earlier part of her career working for the Greater New York Hospital Association, where she was involved in trade association operations and advocacy.

In this role, Lisa directs the overall management of the Foundation for Quality Care, including developing and implementing all its educational programs, research projects, and fundraising activities. Lisa M. Volk RN, B.P.S., LNHA, joined New York State Health Facilities Association (NYSHFA) in 2016 and has over 40 years of experience in long-term care operations. Throughout Lisa’s career, her dedication, diligence, and passion has ensured success for NYSHFA and the long-term care facilities she was employed by, whether serving in a role as executive director, administrator, or director of nursing. During her time at NYSHFA she has played a key role with policy development, advocacy, education, and member support. Her most recent grant work includes lead educator on a variety of projects, as well as Project Director for “Mouth Care Without a Battle “which resulted in article publication in the Journal of American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA), Pragmatic Innovations. Lisa currently serves on the American Health Care Association (AHCA) Clinical & Quality Committee and is a member of the Professional Development Work Group.

Since February 2019, Melony has served as the Manager of Special Projects, excelling in the management and coordination of various grant-funded and membership initiatives. Her work includes managing Project Firstline NY, which provides Infection Control Training to nursing homes and assisted living community’s frontline staff all across New York State. She is also actively involved in managing the Emergency Preparedness Grant and recently worked in collaboration with the New York State Medical Directors COVID-19 project, which addresses the challenges posed by the pandemic to nursing homes.

Prior to her current role, beginning in 2007, Melony served as a part-time program assistant at NYSHFA | NYSCAL | FQC, participating in several initiatives such as the Warfarin Safety Study, the Customer Satisfaction Grant, and the Mouth Care Without a Battle grant project, for which she coauthored a published article in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA).

In addition to her professional duties, Melony is highly active in her community. She currently serves as a Questar III Board of Education Member and holds an elected position as a Chatham Village Trustee.