There was plenty of hot business being conducted at the LeadingAge PEAK Leadership Summit on Monday, and not all of it via smartphone. Between attendees’ important business calls, you could soak up plenty of what you’d want to hear at a conference: Discussions about leadership and the future, reimbursement and policy, and, at this particular event, how incredibly unfair it is that some of us traveled from places like cool, windy Chicago and got worse weather in the nation’s capital.

But all of that underscores how relationships are formed at these conferences, and the value of making these professional friendships. These often become the people you keep in touch with and call … especially if you, or your facility, have a problem.

That mentoring and advice is soon to be more formalized in a program called LeadingAge 911. President and CEO Larry Minnix says that there are members who want to help each other, and that the organization wants to make it easier to receive advice.

“Our board is concerned about organizations that get in trouble,” he says. “The big question [for many of them] is, ‘Will I be here five years from now?’ And some people don’t know they need help, and boards sometimes don’t know until it’s too late.”

The idea is that nursing homes, especially those in rural areas looking for help, would be able to get three or four names from LeadingAge. Further details are to be released this spring.

While it’s still incumbent on administrators to follow up and make those phone calls, LeadingAge 911 is a positive way to reinforce what you already know: in this business, it’s all about the relationships.

There will surely be more of those made and cemented by the time this PEAK Summit closes Wednesday.