Suitcase season: Packed for learning

The arrival of fall had the Long-Term Living editors greasing their suitcase wheels to cover some of the long-term care (LTC) industry’s most influential trade shows, including the annual American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) convention and the LeadingAge national meeting, both held in October.

AHCA’s educational sessions sparked leadership and the need to unify the goals of quality improvement across the LTC continuum. AHCA offered a day-long non-profit component to its conference again this year, changing up its historical focus on the for-profit sector. Meanwhile, the LeadingAge conference continues its foray into innovative business and care models, bringing in more sessions on project planning, marketing strategies, quality care initiatives, medication management and regulatory compliance.

And since no one dares to forget where the community development wallet resides, we also kept a close eye on the housing investment and development news from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, which held its annual meeting in early October.

As editors, the busy travel month of October is both grueling and vastly inspiring. But we attend conferences because we can learn so much more at them than any press releases or webinars can teach us. At conferences, we are privileged to meet and speak with a whole bucket of new sources that can provide insights on trends and new story ideas for the future. In short, we attend conferences because the people we meet—providers, RNs, administrators, owners and vendors—can give us their insights on what those working in the LTC industry need to know—what the next “big stories” should be. We’ve learned about a boatload of new trends and stories during our travels this fall; some of which we’ve reported on already online, and some of which will become deeper, in-depth articles in the coming months.

If you missed any of these key meetings, you can catch up on all the news and on-site articles on our website, www.iadvanceseniorcare.com. If you attended these conferences, we’d love to hear your feedback on what you learned (or didn’t learn?)—please feel free to email me.

Pamela Tabar

Pamela Tabar was editor-in-chief of I Advance Senior Care from 2013-2018. She has worked as a writer and editor for healthcare business media since 1998, including as News Editor of Healthcare Informatics. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and a master’s degree in English from the University of York, England.