124    Business View - October 2015
        
        
          Louisiana Nursing Home Association
        
        
          
            Leader in nursing facility advocacy rated ‘5-star’ by members
          
        
        
          When the Louisiana Nursing Home Association was
        
        
          founded in 1957, the nursing home profession was in its
        
        
          infancy. The original LNHA was comprised of owners of
        
        
          small nursing facilities, often located in large, old houses
        
        
          caring for a dozen or so people. At the time, many states
        
        
          didn’t have regulations governing nursing homes – even
        
        
          for essential issues such as fire safety. So the founders
        
        
          came together as a collective body to share their con-
        
        
          cerns and determine how to approach the common is-
        
        
          sues that faced them.
        
        
          LNHA Executive Director Joe Donchess says: “Interest-
        
        
          ingly, that’s still what we’re doing today – uniting in a pro-
        
        
          fessional way to make things better. Obviously, the regu-
        
        
          lations are tighter now and laws are much more detailed
        
        
          and specific. But our overall mission of providing lead-
        
        
          ership in long-term care policy and advocacy has stayed
        
        
          the same. As technology evolves, we are looking to do
        
        
          more for our members; sourcing modern innovations to
        
        
          help them run their facilities, and offering valuable ad-
        
        
          ditional services.”
        
        
          Today, the Louisiana Nursing Home Association is a non-
        
        
          profit organization representing more than 270 non-prof-
        
        
          HEALTHCARE