Coming: Our new name

Beginning this month our magazine is about to undergo a major makeover. Doing this isn’t easy, when you are working with a magazine that has commanded a loyal readership, or when you are publishing under a title (with minor variations) that has endured for no less than 56 years. But long-term care is changing in profound ways. And, now, so are we.

Come this March, Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management will be published under the new title Long-Term Living. Long-Term Living will carry the Nursing Homes subtitle for a few months to alleviate confusion, and the complete changeover will occur in June.

So, why do this—especially after having spent the last 15 years or so building nationwide name recognition and respect for Nursing Homes?

I think the answer is fairly obvious to anyone who is close to long-term care and has lived with its transformation in recent years. In short, nursing homes and assisted living facilities remain as an essential, increasingly intensive and highly complex part of long-term care, and their managers will remain as our core readers—but facilities today are only a part of a long-term care continuum that has grown amazingly during the past 10 years.

The range of long-term care options is expanding dramatically, as the long-awaited “age wave” of baby boomers just starts to hit the shore. True, the focus of classic long-term care services today is on baby boomers’ parents and relatives. Indeed, would-be residents and their offspring are sizing up long-term care operations as never before. And the more savvy operators are meeting them more than halfway, with moves toward culture change and resident-centered care. Still, many boomers want more when they reach advanced age—more dignity, more fun, more chances for growth, more choice. They want to add life to their years as they add years to their lives.

And the marketplace is responding. Technologists, designers, urban planners, organizational gurus, and others are developing new products, new settings, and new approaches to meeting this new demand. Much of the action is moving toward the more active, independent end of the long-term care spectrum. Cutting-edge organizations are not only providing healthcare, they are supporting living for the long-term.

And Long-Term Living will support and guide them. Our new “Environments for Aging” section this month (p. 12) gives you a sneak preview of where we and the market are heading. And you will see more substantial changes occurring throughout the year.

Does this mean we are abandoning our traditional readership and their information needs? Far from it—you will continue to find plenty of information on operating and upgrading your facilities, just as we’ve always provided. This, too, is important for meeting 21st century needs.

But we are broadening our, and we hope your, horizons. We trust you will continue with us on this journey, a voyage of discovery that will prove to be both inspiring and profitable. We look forward to your responses and to your ideas for Long-Term Living.

RICHARD L. PECK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

To send your comments on this editorial to the author and editors, e-mail peck0108@nursinghomesmagazine.com.

Richard Peck

Richard L. Peck was editor in chief of I Advance Senior Care / Long-Term Living for 18 years. For eight years previous to that, he served as editor of the clinical magazine Geriatrics. He has written extensively on developments in the field of senior care and housing.