November 2012
| Business World Magazine | 99
With a quarter of its population over age 60, Florida is home to more seniors
than any other state in America. The demand to provide healthcare services to
this expanding population in an era so distinguished by diminishing resources
and budgetary restraint, coalesces to create a singular situation interspersed
with problems and possibilities, all routinely played out among teams of leg-
islators, state agencies, healthcare providers and the patients impacted by
enacted protocols. Within that mix of market dynamics and prescribed reme-
dies, one association works to protect the industry’s vitality and venerability.
B
eyond its direct impact in the health and wellness concerns of those
it serves, the healthcare industry is among the leading economic con-
cerns of Florida by virtue of the fact it represents one of the State’s
largest employers. It is estimated that approximately 260,000 jobs are generat-
ed through the operation of long-term care facilities (essentially that formerly
referred to as “nursing homes”). At any given time, there are as many as 88,000
people employed by a long-term care provider. Some ten years ago, Florida es-
tablished a moratorium that limits bed counts at long-term operations, which
effectively led to a boom in the development of smaller-sized endeavors which