LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan recently told members at the group’s annual conference that the pandemic has given them a “significant opportunity to redefine aging services.” Let’s not call it a renewal but rather a “rebirth.”
Before now, the public hasn’t been able to easily differentiate between service lines or between a high-quality nursing home and one that’s less than ideal. That’s why Sloan wants to let that old version of aging services die and shine the light on what’s blooming in its place.
“To know us is to love us,” she said in launching the convention.
And, yet, knowing what the industry has been through during coronavirus surge after surge, political volley after political volley, both Sloan and outgoing Board Chairwoman Carol Silver Elliott acknowledged frankly that simply recasting providers in a better light won’t deliver this hard-hit industry any awards on its own.
Instead, the spotlight needs to point the way forward, giving operators a path to success and making their facilities places modern people want as their homes.
“This is our moment in so many ways,” said Silver Elliott. “This is our moment to rethink the relationship we have with the people we care for. This is our moment to say, ‘Are we really providers providing something, or are we partners working with older adults to help them define what they need, help them achieve meaningful life and a sense of purpose?’”
As Silver Elliott sees it, COVID and what has been learned over the last 20 months is the lever that can now usher in dramatic change. All the things that weren’t working but the industry held onto out of habit? Toss what you can out the window and go with what feels right by your standards (within the rules of the system, of course).
We’ve all aged a lot since March of 2020. In that vein, Silver Elliott asked providers to allow their decisions to be influenced by what they’d want if they were aging seniors right now. Because when there are options, she knows no one willingly takes less than they desire.
“What are we going to settle for?” she asked. “Is this the life we want to have as we become elders? It’s not. The people that are reaching our systems at this point in time are not going to settle for it.”
From the December 2021 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
