Interview With Ronni Bennett, Author of Time Goes By
The Washington Post calls Time Goes By 'the quintessential seniors' blog,' … AARP calls its author Ronni Bennett (in the cool photo montage above), 'the dean of older bloggers,' … And we’re fortunate to have her insights today at Ecumen’s Changing Aging blog.For more than 25 years Ronni, who says 'Age is a gift,' was a radio and television producer, working on such programs as 20/20 and the The Barbara Walters Specials on ABC and for shows on Lifetime TV, NBC, PBS and CBS. In 1996, as the Internet was in its infancy, Ronni was named the first managing editor at cbsnews.com. It was there that the seeds of Time Goes By began to grow. Today she’s changing aging in America from her home in Maine where she authors her groundbreaking blog. Thank you to Ronni for taking time with us.
Why did you start blogging?
After six or eight years of researching aging in my spare time, I had accumulated thousands of pages of notes and articles along with a small library of books on aging and wanted to organize what I’d learned. I had also been following what was, in 2003, the nascent blogging phenomenon and thought it would be a good format for writing about 'what it’s really like to get old' which is the subtitle of my blog.Hardly anyone was writing online about aging back then and what existed - online and in print - was about 95 percent negative; all about decline, disease and debility. I knew getting old couldn’t possibly be as bad as that so while not being a Pollyanna about it, I wanted to explore what is good about aging.
How much time do you spend on Time Goes By?
It’s a seven-day-a-week job. I have a couple dozen Google Alerts of key words and phrases that keep me up on what’s being written about aging, aging news, research, etc. I also subscribe to email newsletters relating to geriatrics, technology, government, public policy, employment, age discrimination, caregiving, etc., so there’s a lot of reading and assimilating to do. Then the writing.I post to Time Goes By six days a week and I also keep a secondary blog, The Elder Storytelling Place, for which I rarely write, but edit and publish stories elders submit. I put in a lot more time on these than I did on regular jobs before I retired from the workplace.
What kind of impact do you think the blogosphere is going to have on how we view aging in America?
There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon from about a dozen years ago showing two dogs sitting at a computer. One says to the other: 'On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.' Well, no one knows your age either, unless you tell them, so one’s thoughts, opinions and writing can more easily be judged on their merit rather than being dismissed for being written by a 70-year-ol. Or a 20-year-old, for that matter.However, I always give my age, when appropriate, on my blog and I urge other elders to do it too so that readers become accustomed to finding stories of interest from 60-and 70- and 80-year-olds and beyond. The United States is a profoundly ageist country in which, for years, elders have been marginalized in media, the workforce and most of the culture as though, when we get old, we forget everything we ever learned. But we still have much to contribute if people will let us, and perhaps within the blogosphere we - the young and the old - might discover what we have in common.
Does growing older fascinate you, or scare you, or something else? Why?
For most of my life, I never thought about getting old. I think our mid-years are so busy with careers, home, child-raising that there’s little time to consider our approaching later years. In my case, I was 55 when I looked around the room where I worked at cbsnews.com for one of the writers I needed to speak with. As I gazed over the faces, I had a startling moment of recognition: I was older than every person in the room by decades, old enough in some cases to be their grandmother.Over the next few weeks, I noticed it again and again and realized I knew nothing about what getting old is like. A cursory look at the popular press, newspapers and magazines, gave me nothing except the debility and decline I mentioned above and I thought if it was going to be THAT bad, I might as well shoot myself.But I couldn’t make myself believe that it would necessarily be so terrible. I was smarter, sharper, better at my job than I had ever been. I was more comfortable in my own skin. I was happier with myself than when I was younger. How could being 55 and even older be the awful thing it is made out to be, I wondered, when I felt so good.Because youth is considered the gold standard of life in the United States, getting old is a great mystery and it fascinates me. And the goal of my blog is to lift the veil on that mystery and find out what it’s really like.
How do you see the age wave - the unprecedented number of older people - changing how we view aging in America?
Well, I haven’t made up my mind about that. On the one hand, with more elders around, everyone else has to become more familiar with us and see the trade-offs that are made. I can’t run as fast or jump as high as I once could, but I’m smarter, more experienced and have a lot better judgment than when I was young.On the other hand, I worry that there will be a generational conflict. There is no denying that as old people become a larger percentage of the population, some people will see the need to care for those who need it as a drain on resources.Nevertheless, things will need to change. With fewer people in the generations coming up behind the baby boomers, finally corporate America will NEED to employ old people longer just to get the work of the country done. Life expectancy increased by 30 years during the 20th century and we are much healthier than our parents' and grandparents' generations. So there is no reason old people should be shoved out of the workplace at 60 or 65 as they are now, and there are signs that corporate America is beginning to recognize this.The generations need one another and I hope that will help change the ageist atmosphere we live in now.
Do you see the media changing how it views and depicts aging?
A little, but not much yet. This is so because most of the media is run by young people and they don’t understand old people. Our interests and concerns change as we get older, but the media treats us mostly as slightly dotty, none too bright and the youth and beauty police keep insisting that we do everything possible to pretend to be younger than we are. The ad agencies and TV and movie producers need to employ some 60- and 70-year-olds to get it right.There are a few more magazines, such as More and ELDR aimed at older people, and that’s good except that they may be becoming kind of a ghetto of old people media. And Oprah Winfrey, who has millions of fans and is considered the queen of daytime television, spends a great amount of time on her show pursuing the pretense of youth. Oprah is 54 years old. She should be wise enough by now to use her media power to help people accept aging as a normal stage of life, promote its dignity, recognize the value of elders and help integrate them into the mainstream.
Which are you enjoying more - your career in your 30s or your work today?
I had a wonderful career in television. I traveled the world on someone else’s dime, worked with kings and queens and movie stars and heads of state, and learned a lot of things I would never have otherwise known. And then, after a couple of decades, I was given the opportunity to work in a burgeoning new medium, the internet, when it was brand new.During all those years, I never thought much about what I’d do when I wasn’t employed in the workforce anymore. I suppose I expected to do that until I die, but a bit of age discrimination in the workplace got in the way. I hadn’t intended, when I started Time Goes By, to make it a late-life career, but it morphed into that. It’s allowed me to meet people from all over the world, get to the know the tech community and participate in the blogging world beyond turning out a blog post each day, attending and speaking at conferences and, perhaps, making some small difference in how elders are perceived and treated.So I can’t say I enjoy one more than the other, but how lucky for me that the internet and blogging came along just when I needed it.
Changing Aging in America
Last week was a busy, interesting time on Capitol Hill in the area of 'Changing Aging in America.' Three different hearings (one including Ecumen) … all highlighting the need for holistic aging public policy in America - no planning in silos - so that the United States rides the age wave and people have the independence, quality of life and safety that they desire and deserve.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging urging Congress to take a more active role in the research and treatment of Americans with Alzheimer’s Disease Justice O’Connor’s husband John has it, and another person is getting it every 72 seconds. Her testimony is here.
Kathy Bakkenist, Ecumen COO and senior vice president of strategy and operations, testified on technology to support family caregiving in a U.S. House briefing led by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and the National Alliance for Caregiving. You can read Kathy’s testimony here. 
And the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing about rogue nursing homes (which should be eliminated from existence). You can read more about it here.
Why Are So Many Companies Scared of People?
It’s unreal how so many companies are scared of people - even their own people. Yet people are their business. Starbucks sees the power of people with their new consumer 'idea generator' website. I don’t like coffee, but I like what they’re doing.At Ecumen, we also find that the best ideas come from people who know us best - Ecumen customers and Ecumen employees. The power of people is the genesis behind Ecumen’s Innovation Station. (note: this is a PDF link)Housed on our intranet, it’s where teams of people shape new ways of doing things. Last week was our annual celebration recognizing innovators, who have done a variety of things to improve the customer experience, including:
- Specialized behavioral Alzheimer’s training- A new memory care community for people dealing with the most serious behavioral issues caused by Alzheimer’s, there are only 2 in Minnesota and a handful nationally
- New congregational senior housing.- 
Expanding outside bricks and mortar to provide seamless care in a person’s home- Expansion of technology such as wireless record keeping of care (no more paper) and
- Universal marketing, when a person walks into an assisted living community, everyone is empowered and trained to serve that person and provide a tour- Making it possible for nursing home residents to eat when they want to eat, what they want to eat (No institutional 7 a.m. wake up call and everyone going to the dining line at once … yuck)- Concierge service so that our customers have point of contact when they seek a service- Going green …the only paper products that Country Neighbors of New Richland, Minnesota, uses are recycled paper towels- 'Guest' apartments so that potential customers can 'test-drive' our communities- Retrofitted dining trays for a person’s walker to enhance independence and allow a person to fully participate in buffet-style dining- End of life care that underscores aging is all about living even at the very end of life.
THE POWER OF PEOPLE - WHAT POSSIBILITIES
Long Term Care Financing Solutions Conference at Humphrey Institute
Who is going to pay for the unprecedented numbers of seniors who will need care? How will they pay? What are better ways to pay than what America has today?Your’re invited to a discussion about potential approaches to long-term care financing reform and what states can do to be national leaders in creating solutions. The conference is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Minnesota Health and Housing Alliance, American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), and American Association of Retired Persons Minnesota (AARP). Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts will be one of the panelists.For more information and the conference agenda, go to: http://www.politicsandgovernance.org/events.htmlWednesday, June 4, 20088:00am - 12:15pmCowles AuditoriumHubert H. Humphrey Center301 19th Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55455Registration Information: This conference is FREE to attend and includes a continental breakfast. Registration is limited and handled on a first-received basis. Registration deadline is Friday, May 23, 2008. Please direct all registration questions to Beth Gabrysiak at MHHA.You can register in one of three ways:
- Register online at MHHA.com (click on events)
- Fax registration form to 651-645-0002, Attn: #8258
- Mail registration form to MHHA, 2550 University Avenue West, Suite 350 South, St. Paul, MN 55114-1900, Attn: #8258.
Once registered, you will receive an e-mail confirmation with the information for this event.
Prairie Lodge of Brooklyn Center: A New Option for Alzheimer’s Behavioral Care
'After going from crisis to crisis, Joan is finally in a place where they have the time and training to really help,' said her husband, Terry, 76, a retired math teacher and businessman from Shoreview. 'How many places can you get kicked out of? Let’s see, for us it was four in one year.' … .
Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune told a wonderful story of Ecumen’s Summit House at Prairie Lodge, a new option in Brooklyn Center, Minn., for people and families dealing with the extreme behaviors that at times accompany Alzheimer’s. Thank you to the Wagener family for choosing Ecumen’s new housing option and being so candid about telling this powerful story. We salute you!
'Drugs may be a good answer, but it should never be the first answer,' said Janelle Meyers, Ecumen’s director of Prairie Lodge. 'A resident isn’t trying to be nasty or disruptive. It’s the disease talking. If someone is screaming, they’re trying to communicate something. We need to figure out what that is.'
Above are just a few of the innovators (several of whom are pictured at last week’s Ecumen Leadership Conference) who sought a new way to help people and family members dealing with the most extreme behaviors of Alzheimer’s. They are part of an incredible team of people throughout this organization who are delivering a beautiful vision for 'Changing Aging':
We envision a world in which aging is viewed and understood inradically different ways.
Ecumen’s Prairie Lodge in Brooklyn Center: Providing a New Option for Alzheimer’s Behavioral Care
'After going from crisis to crisis, Joan is finally in a place where they have the time and training to really help,' said her husband, Terry, 76, a retired math teacher and businessman from Shoreview. 'How many places can you get kicked out of? Let’s see, for us it was four in one year.'
Terry and Joan are pictured above in the photo by Minneapolis Star Tribune photographer David Joles. Joan lives at an Ecumen community called Prairie Lodge in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, that is providing a very specialized memory care service in its Summit House residence. Read the powerful Star Tribune story here as told by Warren Wolfe. We thank Joan for living at an Ecumen community and for Terry for sharing his family’s story for others.Every 72 seconds in America someone gets Alzheimer’s. And some people are so ravaged by the disease their mind leads them to do things they would never do otherwise, such as threaten to kill their loved ones or urinate on the floor. As Ecumen’s Janelle Meyers, who leads Ecumen’s Prairie says:
'A resident isn’t trying to be nasty or disruptive. It’s the disease talking. If someone is screaming, they’re trying to communicate something. We need to figure out what that is. Drugs may be a good answer, but it should never be the first answer.'
Last week at Ecumen’s Leaderhip Conference, members of the Prairie Lodge team were honored for their innovation in creating Summit House and enhancing the lives of people (and their family members) who are dealing with the complexities of extreme behaviors caused by Alzheimer’s. They are helping us all achieve the Ecumen vision for 'Changing Aging,' We envision a world in which aging is viewed and understood in radically different ways.
Lakeshore in Duluth: The Right Care in the Right Place at the Right Time
You might have read our post the other day about a Duluth News Tribune 'story that missed the story' about Ecumen’s work in Duluth. Below is an op-ed authored by Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts and Lakeshore volunteer community board chair John Hyduke that provides context that was missing in the original story. It was published in yesterday’s Duluth News Tribune:Care systems should foster self-empowermentKathryn Roberts & John Hyduke, Duluth News TribunePublished Sunday, May 11, 2008Leadership isn’t easy. Sometimes stones get thrown at you. That’s what happened to Lakeshore, its parent organization Ecumen and all aging services and health care innovators in the May 4 News Tribune (“Profits before patient care?”).In Ecumen’s crystal ball, we see a state and country that rides the unprecedented age wave. We see people having opportunity to live at home to the very end of their lives. And we see a seamless, integrated health care system that delivers the right care in the right place at the right time.We see that future because we are helping shape it in Duluth and elsewhere.Most people don’t need long-term care and government-funded million-dollar nursing home stays. But serious disconnects in our patchwork health system often lead to institutionalizing people, over medicating, draining human will and devouring public dollars.Several years ago Ecumen had a decision to make: tear down the outdated Lakeshore nursing home and sell the lakeside land on London Road to a developer to build homes, or move forward and serve seniors and others in new ways.Duluth has plenty of nursing homes that provide long-term care. We focused on an area of need not being fully met: short-term care and rehabilitation.In our vision, people move much more easily and with greater confidence from the hospital to coordinated care and services. A nursing home becomes a specialized medical respite center for rehabilitation and chronic care management, not an under-funded, antiquated institution where someone recovering from a hip replacement shares a wing with an Alzheimer’s patient, as is all too often the case today.In our vision, care is fully funded. Now, government funds don’t cover costs of providing care at traditional nursing homes. In fact, many of Minnesota’s government-funded nursing homes operate with less than 10 days cash on hand. A choice between payroll and innovation is no choice.Instead of selling the land on London Road, we decided not only to build new buildings, but a new way to deliver care in Duluth. We replaced an outdated nursing home with a new neighborhood that has a short-term care center, and independent, assisted living, and memory care apartment homes.At the short-term care center, our entire focus is getting people better to go home. It serves people €” of all incomes €” with short-term care and rehabilitation, not long-term care. It’s a specialty center, just as there are specialty centers for oncology, child care and others. If a person needs more intensive care in a health care setting, we can coordinate it at Bayshore, which is an Ecumen-managed nursing home. We’re creating a true continuum of care.Ecumen will never build another institutional nursing home. Our society doesn’t want it. And our customers and we don’t want Lakeshore to be another traditional nursing home. That’s why we’re decertifying from Medicaid, which pays for most Americans’ long-term care nursing stays. We will continue serving all income levels at Lakeshore’s short-term care center, but we will do it under Medicare. People who want to stay beyond their Medicare benefit will by law be given the option to pay just as they would do if they wanted to stay in a hospital beyond their regular stay. But the fact is, most people don’t want to stay in a hospital or at our short-term care center long-term because they want to go home or more independent setting.Across this country people want a care system that leads with self-empowerment, is more integrated, proactive, and is focused on getting people back to where they most want to be: home. And at Ecumen, we are working hard to make that happen.Kathryn Roberts of the Twin Cities is president and CEO of Ecumen, which manages Lakeshore, Bayshore, Lakeland Shores Apartments and the Chris Jensen Health and Rehabilitation Center in Duluth. John Hyduke of Duluth is the community board chairman of Ecumen’s Lakeshore community and is president of WestmorelandFlint.
10 Examples of Disney Magic That Apply to Aging Services
'In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future' - Walt Disney
We had a fabulous day at the annual Ecumen Leadership Conference yesterday, which brings together 400+ leaders from across Ecumen to meet in Minneapolis.Aging services is the ultimate customer service business. Our theme yesterday was the 'Magic of It,' which we’ve discussed here. And we got to hear the perspective from a leader at Disney (which knows a thing or two about customer service). It’s interesting how many parallels there are between creating customer magic at Disney and in aging services. Here are a few:1. No matter whether you call them customers, constituents, residents, or patients, we all must must satisfy our guests or risk losing them.2. Quality service means exceeding your guests' expectations and paying attention to detail. Exceeding expectations must be a standard call to duty. 3. Whatever we accomplish, we accomplish together.4. We have to deliver on needs and wants.5. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress.6. It should be the responsibility of all team members (at Disney they call them Cast Members) to attempt, to the best of their abilities, to immediately resolve a guest service failure before it becomes a guest service problem.7. Wear your guest’s shoes … Never forget the human factor. Evaluate your setting (the environment in which you serve your customers) from the customer’s perspective by experiencing it as a customer.8. Guide the customer experience with setting (the environment in which service is delivered to customers). Make sure the physical layout of your organization (or web site or phone system), interior design, and signage keep customers on the track to Quality Service.9. Separate onstage and backstage: Screen business functions that do not involve customers so that they do not interrrupt the delivery of service. Give employees a backstage space to rest and relax.10. All organizations have customers with needs that fall outside their standard processes. Make sure your processes - the policies, tasks and procedures to deliver the service - aren’t all one-size fits all, and inflexible, so that you can and meet different customer needs and wants.If you have more examples of creating a magical experience for customers, please comment.
Senior Housing Management Selection Tips From Ecumen
Ecumen has released a new whitepaper on tips for finding the right senior housing management partner - the original news release and link to this whitepaper and others follows:Latest whitepaper divulges 10 questions designed to ensure senior housing providers partner with the right management partnersSHOREVIEW, MN - May 8, 2008-- https://staging-ecumenv2.kinsta.cloud €“ Aging services provider Ecumen, one of America’s largest non-profit senior housing companies, is helping senior housing owners, who are thinking of hiring a management firm, with the release of its latest whitepaper designed to help create the best possible partnerships.“10 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Senior Housing, Nursing Home or CCRC Management Company” is based on Ecumen’s deep knowledge of the industry as not only a senior housing provider, but one of the country’s top senior housing development and management partners.“In an industry that is as customer centric as senior housing, customers vote with their feet,” states Steve Ordahl, Ecumen’s Senior Vice President, Business Development. “What this latest whitepaper provides is answers to ten key questions that, if answered properly, will help housing providers create a home where customers want to be.”Much of the advice offered in this latest paper centers around conducting detailed research on the company being considered as a partner, whether it be social or financial.“Stop by a management firm’s current community unannounced and ask yourself €“ do the customers look happy? Are the employees helpful? Does the community look and feel good?” quotes the paper.Beyond this diligent footwork, much can be learned about senior housing management firms by conducting diligent homework, especially when it comes to the firm’s financials.“A good share of management firms also own their own properties,” continues Ordahl. “In cases like this, reputable firms are willing to share the history of their financial performance. The ones that do not are oftentimes the ones you have to be more concerned about.”By heeding to the advice provided in this latest whitepaper, new senior housing providers are assured to live up to a simple, but powerful, mission of creating a home for older adults where these choose to, rather than have to live.
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Ecumen To Talk Technology and Family Caregiving at Congressional Session
Family Caregiving and Technology - an essential collaboration when you look at demographic realities and people’s desires to live as independently and empowered as possible.Next Wednesday, May 14th, in Washington, D.C., there’s going to be a great Congressional briefing led by the National Alliance for Caregiving. It will be held from 8 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in the Rayburn Office Building, Room B-339. Entitled 'Technology to Support Family Caregiving,' speakers will include Ecumen’s Chief Operations Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations Kathy Bakkenist, as well as:- Gail Hunt, President and CEO, National Alliance for Caregiving.- Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)- Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)- Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA)- Carol Smith, RN, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center- Sara J. Czaja, Professor, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine- Adam Darkins, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs- Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)- Pramod Gaur, Ph.D., President Healthanywhere- David L. Whitlinger, Continua and Intel Corporation- Thomas Carey, Vice President Sales & Government Business WebMD Health Services- Charles Hillman, PE, CEO, GrandCare Systems- Kevin Sypniewski, CEO, AGIS Network- Hal Chapel, CEO, Lotsa Helping Hands