Imagine our industry without innovations: We’d all be faxing each other about residents’ shuffleboard tournaments. Instead, whenever one senior living community shares an innovation they tried and succeeded with, others benefit—for instance, transforming an institutional dining room into a restaurant with chef-prepared meals, or turning to the Disney Institute for a fresh take on customer service training. And sometimes by sharing, a new best practice begins to grow.
With this sharing and growth in mind, Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging created its annual Promising Practices Awards. These awards recognize and honor organizations that are serving older adults in new and exciting ways—and our goal is that they become innovation-growers. That is, Promising Practices Awards spread the word on new practices that others (your organization, perhaps?) might want to adapt, and join together in moving the industry forward.