Health care reform is exacerbated by today’s realities in senior care that are already making it difficult to consistently provide high-quality care at lower costs. Reimbursement cuts that could reach $65 billion, workforce shortages, and an aging population are skewing the curves of supply and demand.

On a recent sunny day in New York City, a hotel ballroom in Times Square was packed with nearly 150 attendees from some 90 nursing homes. The crowd consisted of staff members who had gathered for a two-day training on disaster preparedness.

Senators on Thursday will mark up legislation that could overhaul the nation’s immigration system. Long term care providers, like many of the nation’s businesses, have gotten behind legislation sponsored by the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators that would expand skilled visas and—at least, potentially—allow illegal immigrants to change their status.

The recent events in Watertown, Mass., as the hunt for perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing ensued, and the plant explosion in West, Texas, that impacted a nursing home reminds us that providers must be ready for anything and everything.

Social media is a vital part of everyone’s lives today on both a professional and a personal level. For human resource professionals, however, there exists some confusion about what constitutes a permissible social media policy or rule and what an employee can safely “post” on a social media website about his or her employer without being subject to discipline and/or termination.

Long term care and post-acute facility residents are individuals whose personalities and feelings must be considered in an effort to keep them safe and happy. That is the lesson of culture change, and facilities have embraced it in efforts to ensure quality care and resident satisfaction. Now facilities increasingly have begun to apply this lesson to staff development and motivation with similar results.

Meet Joyce Simard, founder of Namaste Care, geriatric consultant, author, and one of this year's 20 To Watch honorees.

Meet Whitney Ostercamp, music therapist at Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, in Taylorsville, N.C. Find out what makes Ostercamp a 20 To Watch star.

Meet Christine Reynolds, physical therapist and rehab coordinator at Tendercare of Tawas City, Mich. Reynolds treats her residents like family, colleagues and patients say.

They listen, they lead, they love their work, and they want to make a difference in the lives of elders in nursing homes, assisted living communities, and elsewhere across the country. They are Provider’s 20 To Watch in 2013. In this inaugural feature are profiled some of the most compassionate and committed folks in long term and post-acute care.