Editor’s Note: McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Home Care are profiling the McKnight’s 2023 Women of Distinction honorees daily from July 5 to Aug. 15. For additional McKnight’s Women of Distinction content, visit this page.

Lori Porter has been described as “the kind of person you want in your corner fighting for what’s right.” 

That quality has served her well as CEO of the National Association of Healthcare Assistants, an organization dedicated to motivating, educating and developing frontline excellence. 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Porter has raised the profile of nursing assistants and brought NAHCA’s mission and vision to skilled nursing facilities and assisted living communities nationwide. In 2020, she served on the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes, leading to appointments to task forces for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 

Known as passionate, articulate and fiercely protective of those who serve the nation’s most vulnerable populations, she has led NAHCA and its members through the pandemic fighting for more personal protective equipment, pay and respect, and she is unafraid to speak her mind when it comes to recognizing, supporting, appreciating and respecting CNAs. 

Porter is a nationally sought-after speaker on frontline development, team-building and transforming workforces into “careforces.” She has inspired CNA teams across the country, perfected her workforce development skills, trained more than 7,000 CNAs directly as leaders in long-term care, and developed the revolutionary Enclave Principle, which rebuilds and retrains the CNA team and improves retention. 

Porter’s workforce solution, the National Institute for CNA Excellence, is a one-stop virtual career center for everything CNA-related, including recruitment, retention, certification, job placement, continuing education and ongoing career support. NICE is operational in Texas and soon will launch in additional states. 

Porter has been appointed to the Moving Forward coalition’s steering committee, an initiative dedicated to advancing the goals outlined in a 2020 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

Thanks to Porter and NAHCA, CNAs’ stories are being told, and their voices are being heard.

The McKnight’s Women of Distinction program is jointly administered by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, McKnight’s Senior Living and McKnight’s Home Care. PointClickCare is the Diamond sponsor of this year’s program. PharMerica is the Silver sponsor. Additional sponsors include American HealthTech, Healthcare Services Group, Omnicare, Sentrics and ShiftKey.

Visit this web page to see lists of honorees from 2023 and previous years.