Schedule & Program

8:30am

KEYNOTE SESSION:
Leaders – You Are the Key to Resolving the Chaos
Molly Mackey (LEAdeRNship Institute)

This session covers the Trough of Chaos Model of Change, helping leaders understand why people struggle during transitions and how to create an environment where trust, communication, and psychological safety help teams move from uncertainty to confidence. Participants will leave with practical strategies to reduce resistance, strengthen resilience, and become the steady leadership their teams need most.

 

9:45am

Leadership
DO BETTER: And Other Words of Wisdom from an Old Nurse
Vicki McNealley (WHCA)

Throughout her nursing career, Vicki McNealley has collected nine memorable phrases that are simple yet powerful pieces of wisdom. Each carries a story and a lesson that has shaped the way she leads, serves, and lives. Participants will leave inspired to recognize the wisdom that surrounds them every day, and perhaps discover a few words they’ll carry with them for years to come.

 

Quality/Legal
From Vision to Practice: How Leadership Shapes Infection Prevention Success in Long-Term Care
Shannon Cupka (Comagine Health)

Infection prevention in long-term care is more critical than ever, yet it remains one of the most frequently cited deficiencies. As residents enter care with increasingly complex medical needs, higher acuity, and emerging infectious risks, leaders and infection preventionists must be ready to respond with confidence.  This session will address what it takes to support a strong IPC program, strengthen a culture of safety, and protect residents, staff, and visitors.

 

General
The New Workforce Blueprint: Reinventing Recruitment and Hiring
Gina Johnston (LeaderStat)

Today’s workforce has changed—and outdated hiring and retention strategies are no longer effective. In this session, participants will explore how to modernize recruitment, streamline hiring processes, and create meaningful first impressions that drive engagement and retention. With a focus on culture, speed, and the employee experience, this presentation provides practical, actionable strategies to help senior living leaders attract top talent, reduce early turnover, and build a more stable, committed workforce.

 

11:00am

Leadership
What Do You Mean My Service Plan Isn’t Resident Centered?!
Christy Jacobo (Prestige Senior Living)

This session provides an overview of resident-centered care and the key compliance requirements for Washington Assisted Living communities. Participants will learn how assessments, care planning, documentation, resident rights, and responding to significant changes support quality care, regulatory compliance, and positive resident outcomes. This session emphasizes practical strategies for delivering safe, person-centered care while maintaining survey readiness.

 

Quality/Legal
CMS Risk Based Surveys – What you need to know! (SNF Only)
Elena Madrid (WHCA)

CMS plans to implement the nationwide Risk-Based Survey (RBS) on September 8, 2026. Currently, about 12% of all nursing facilities nationwide will qualify for the new RBS survey process. In this session, we will learn the criteria facilities need to meet to qualify, discuss how this survey process will be implemented in our state, and steps to take to assist your facility in the RBS process.

 

General
Art of Investigation
Cynthia McDaniel (Elderwise/NurseLearn)

This session will equip providers with the knowledge and practical skills needed to conduct effective incident investigations. Participants will learn how to move beyond surface-level facts to identify root causes, gather objective information, and document findings clearly and defensibly. This presentation emphasizes a systematic and resident-centered approach to investigations that supports regulatory compliance, reduces repeat incidents, and promotes a culture of risk mitigation and accountability.

 

Tradeshow Luncheon

 

1:45pm

Leadership
Clinical Leadership: The 6^th Star of Quality
Chukk Nielson (Avamere)

5-star ratings reflect outcomes, but they do not capture the leadership that creates them. This session invites nurse leaders, administrators, and owners to reimagine their role and see leadership not as a set of tasks but as a transformative influence – the 6th Star of Quality. When leadership leads with intention, every metric, every survey, every outcome becomes a reflection of the care and culture at the center of the organization.

 

Quality/Legal
Every Rate Tells a Story: Idaho, Washington & Medicare Reimbursement Update
Amy Seils (Cascadia Services)

Every picture tells a story, and in reimbursement, the picture is constantly changing. This session will examine the new Idaho and Washington Medicaid rates effective July 1, 2026, highlighting the key drivers behind recent rate changes and what they mean for provider operations and financial performance. By the end of the session, attendees will understand not only what the reimbursement picture looks like today, but also future opportunities, risks, and strategies for success.

 

General
Service Learning for Impact: Leveraging Academic Partnerships to Scale Healthcare Communications
Rebecca Cooney (WSU)

This session reveals a high-impact, sustainable strategy for bridging that gap: structuring effective, in-curriculum service learning partnerships with community college and university communication, marketing, and public relations programs. Participants will learn how to set clear project goals, define workflows, and gain a semester’s worth of applied labor focused on high-priority initiatives, ensuring your organization maximizes its communication capacity with minimal strain on existing staff.

 

WHCA Board Meeting, 2-4pm

 

3:00pm

Leadership
Picture This: Practical AI Tools Every Long-Term Care Leader Can Use
Sara Bayer (Haystack Robitics)

AI is no longer just a future trend. It is a practical tool that can help long-term care professionals save time, improve communication, create stronger training materials, and streamline everyday tasks. This interactive session will share real-world AI applications specifically relevant to skilled nursing and assisted living, along with practical tips and tricks you can use.

 

Quality/Legal
Facility Tours: Advocacy on the Ground
Aidan Swayne (WHCA)

Facility tours are an essential part of advocacy and a wonderful way to engage your communities as a voice for the future of long-term care. They provide substantial opportunities for educating lawmakers in Washington and Idaho. Learn how to prepare, plan, and execute a facility tour with a district legislator, dignitary, or other government personnel. We will overview the structure of a facility tour, build talking points, and walk through how our organizations target specific legislators in key areas to drive messages of change and sustainability.

 

General
Social Media Best Practices in Health Communication
Rebecca Cooney

The art of effective social media marketing requires that an organization be adept at creating targeted content that speaks to right person, in the right way, at the right time. In this session we will walk through a series of steps for building a social media strategy framework, talk specifically about digital campaign planning and implementation including guidelines for sharing your message across multiple channels, and then close with information about metrics planning and optimization for sustainable outcomes.

 

4:15pm

Leadership
Beyond Burnout: The Missing Strategy for Retaining Long-Term Care Leaders – Building Whole-Person Wellness
Cecilia Owsley, Jolynne Hunt (Nightingale)

In this engaging session, long-term care leaders will explore a whole-person approach to preventing and addressing burnout, while reflecting on their own well-being and the culture they create for others. Participants will move beyond quick fixes to consider what truly helps people feel supported, connected, resilient, and able to thrive. They’ll leave with practical, realistic, evidence-based strategies they can use to strengthen their own well-being and foster healthier, more sustainable teams.

 

Quality/Legal
Beyond the Fall: Building Safer Pathways in Long-Term Care – Practical Strategies for Prevention, Mitigation, and Response Across the Care Team
Sing Palat BIO HA, Amy Jones, April Meckel (Optum)

Falls are one of the leading causes of injury, hospitalization, and functional decline in older adults living in long-term care, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living communities. This session will approach falls not only as a clinical and regulatory challenge, but also as a human experience—shaping dignity, independence, and quality of life for residents and families. Participants will gain an evidence-based, interdisciplinary framework for fall prevention, mitigation, and response, with practical strategies that bring together nursing, rehabilitation, pharmacy, social work, and administrative teams.

 

General
From Discharge to Home: Creating Better Outcomes Through Seamless Care Transitions
Jeff Mason (Serengeti Care)

Every successful discharge depends on what happens after a patient leaves the facility. This presentation will focus on reducing readmissions, improving patient outcomes, and strengthening collaboration between hospitals, skilled nursing, assisted living, and home care providers. Participants will learn practical approaches to closing gaps in communication and creating a true continuum of care.

8:00am

Quality/Legal
Ask the Attorneys

This interactive session gives you direct access to legal experts who understand the unique challenges facing skilled nursing and assisted living providers. Focusing on regulatory compliance, resident rights, and emerging legal topics affecting assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, no topic is off limits. Submit your questions in advance (cards provided at each table) or ask them live during the session and walk away with practical guidance you can apply immediately.

 

9:15am

Quality/Legal
Ask the HR Experts
Lynette Hatscher (Shared HR Services)
Wendi Modarelli (HRT Northwest)

Join a panel of experienced human resources professionals as they answer your most pressing HR questions affecting long-term care providers. Whether you’re navigating hiring and retention, employee relations, leave management, performance issues, investigations, documentation, wage and hour concerns, or workplace culture, this interactive session is your opportunity to receive practical, real-world advice. Submit your questions ahead of time (cards provided at each table) or ask them live and benefit from the discussion with your peers.

 

10:30am

Quality/Legal
Ask the Insurance Experts
Deanna Winchester (Propel)

Join a panel of insurance and risk management professionals as they answer your questions about liability, property and casualty coverage, cyber liability, claims management, loss prevention, and emerging risks impacting long-term care providers. Whether you’re looking to better understand your policies or reduce your organization’s exposure, this interactive session offers practical insights and expert guidance. Submit your questions (cards provided at each table) in advance or ask them live during the session.

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8:00am

Clinical
Beyond the Dementia Behaviors – What Actually Works: International Evidence From thousands of Care Organizations from Asia, America and Europe
João Pärtel Araújo

This session covers techniques that actually reduce neuropsychiatric symptoms such as care resistance and aggression, and their consequences. Leaders will see real before/after data from multi-country implementations, understand why “read the resident’s needs” has unwillingly disempowered staff instead of helping them, and be introduced to the shift the whole day is built on: from subjective, unmeasurable care philosophy to skills-based, observable, teachable techniques.

 

9:15am

Clinical
Beyond the Dementia Behaviors – The Skill, Not the Sentiment: Making Great Care Observable
João Pärtel Araújo

This session takes what the best teams in dementia care in the world actually do and breaks it down into a procedure specific enough that a leader can stand in a doorway, see whether it’s happening, and give it a score. Leaders will walk away with a concrete, walk-the-floor checklist of observable markers they can use the next day.

 

10:30am

Clinical
Beyond the Dementia Behaviors – Why It Doesn’t Stick: Building Skills That Survive the Shift
João Pärtel Araújo

This session reveals how to make staff training actually work, why one-time training fails according to implementation science, and why your organization isn’t the exception. Leaders will understand how to build micro-learning and peer-to-peer skill coaching, what AI-supported skill reinforcement looks like in practice, and a practical model for moving staff from knowing what they should do to actually doing it, consistently, even under pressure.