Elizabeth Newman

As a long-term care journalist, I’m rarely surprised anymore. Whether it’s a provider going above and beyond for their residents, or a bizarre Medicaid fraud scheme, all of it seems par for the course in this industry. It’s never predictable.

But then I began diving into the nominations for McKnight’s Women of Distinction program.

Alongside our expert panel of industry judges and my colleagues, I’ve reviewed easily a hundred of the entries personally. It’s been humbling, due in no small part to that we pride ourselves on knowing many industry leaders. Many of the nominees, however, were new to us.

The nominators made it clear how many women in the field are quietly changing the business for the better, pushing forward the attributes of being humble, hungry and smart while usually rarely drawing attention to themselves. In other words, we have a robust list of people you need to hear about, and from, in our long-term care and senior living coverage.

As a group, our finalists represent the U.S. and Canada, through a variety of companies overseeing skilled nursing, senior living, academic institutions, and more. They have dramatically different backgrounds, but overall they reflect how they’ve dedicated their careers to bettering the care of seniors.

While it’s been incredibly challenging to narrow down the list to the 2019 final winners, we’re excited to say we’ll be announcing our Rising Star Winners on Wednesday, March 13 in our McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Daily Update and McKnight’s Senior Living Daily Briefing newsletters. The Hall of Honor winners will be announced on Thursday, March 14.

But wait, there’s more: McKnight’s will be hosting a live event to honor these winners in May in Chicago. Our hat’s off to PointClickCare, which has proudly expressed pride in this area and whose sponsorship is helping make this possible. We plan to announce exciting new details on how to attend this evening affair very soon, and hope many of you will be able to join us, winner or not. It will surely be an affair to remember.

Also on the upcoming agenda, we expect to announce our Lifetime Achievement Award winner later this month. She will also be honored in person.

Now, the less fun part: It is inevitable that there will be some disappointment when the winners are announced next week. If you’re not one of the lucky handful, rest assured you’re still in good company — a LOT of good company. As I mentioned earlier, we received hundreds of nominations and not one of them was weak.

The good news is, this is an annual program and we will add to the ranks of the honored again. So if you don’t pop up on a list next week, we want to encourage you to reapply next year.

We’d also like you to submit feedback about the submission process — feel free to email me at [email protected]. This program is already a smashing success in its first year, and it’s going to be even better in the future.

Follow Senior Editor Elizabeth Newman @TigerELN.