In 2007, the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association, the trade association for skilled nursing care facilities in the state, saw the need for a new research and education initiative that would focus on efforts to address the many issues affecting the quality and performance of the nursing home industry, with an emphasis on innovative approaches to long-standing issues in both medical/nursing care as well as in residential quality of life. The decision to form a new nonprofit 501(c)(3) public corporation, with its own independent board of trustees, would make it possible to attract to North Carolina support from a variety of private philanthropies and governmental agencies so that these efforts could focus on all types of facilities providing skilled nursing care.

The wisdom of this initiative, taken under the leadership of J. Craig Souza, the President of the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association, was almost immediately successful in attracting nearly $300,000 in private financing from The Duke Endowment for the support of an innovative (perhaps even unique) approach to in-service education for nursing home nursing personnel at every level (NAs, LPNs, and RNs). Through this project, directed by Polly Godwin Welsh, RN-C, FutureCareNC was able to purchase a $75,000 patient care simulator (mannequin) that would make it possible to simulate almost any bodily function...