Hacienda Nursing Home/Google Maps
By Caitlin McGlade | Arizona Republic
A group designed to draft a better way to oversee nursing home leadership has recommended the existing board stay put, as long as more members are added and the Arizona Health Department checks their work.
Gov. Doug Ducey disbanded the board that licenses nursing home administrators this spring after regulators overlooked glaring problems that put seniors at risk.
The Arizona Legislature extended the board’s life until March 2022 and established a study committee to advise next steps.
That committee’s recommendation to retain the board, which squeaked by on a 10 to 8 vote, was delivered mostly by executives of long-term care communities, including one man whose brother also serves on the nursing home board.
Dean Kidder, who voted to preserve the board, said he never had to announce his relationship to nursing home board member Ken Kidder, but he said the organization that asked him to serve, Arizona LeadingAge, knew about it.
