We were thrilled on the day our office tapped into the internet.
It was around 1996. Of course, getting the new toy to actually work was a bit of a challenge back then. First, there was the sign-up sheet. Yes, a team of editors shared the lone computer with World Wide Web access. Each person could use the magic machine for a half hour. Not a minute longer.
Then there was the matter of getting a typed-in URL to actually appear, watching elements slowly assemble and hoping the desired destination wouldn’t time out.
Back then, what we were really learning was patience. But we felt newly empowered. It was as if our ability to grasp knowledge had changed. For, indeed, it had.
By today’s standards, things were remarkably primitive. But it’s amazing how long people will embrace a mediocre-or-worse status quo. At least until a better option comes along.
A similar phenomenon appears to be happening in this field. In many ways, senior living is the best thing that ever happened to the aged — and their stressed out children.
Dignity-preserving care outside the home has never been so abundant. For a relatively new invention, it has evolved, diversified and filled in niches at warp speed.
Yet for all the progress, this sector is much like our office’s internet capabilities circa 1996. The current stock of long-term care facilities offer an amazing improvement over their predecessors. But what we now have available will be laughed at as appallingly inadequate in a few short decades. Perhaps sooner.
I have no doubt that what’s ahead for this sector will put current realities to shame. Let’s just hope that future operators will be better able to master the caregiving, staffing, payment and other big-ticket challenges that seem so universal today.
What I strongly suspect is that many current obstacles will be overcome. But new, unexpected problems also will arise.
Will the sector be able to meet new demands? Will completely different approaches to eldercare and housing nullify the reality that currently exists? Who knows?
What is guaranteed is this: Long-term care will be different. Try not to be left behind.
Read O’Connor’s blog each Monday at www.mcknights.com.
From the January/February 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
