Washington Post team gets top award for eye-opening senior care investigation
The Posts investigative series about assisted-living facilities problems got national recognition from AARP. Two reporters uncovered issues in senior care industry including safety risks and money-related troubles
The Washington Posts Memory Inc series got a big win: the AARP Award for Excellence in Journalism on Aging (in large category) from National Press Foundation
About two years ago Lori Montgomery and Sandhya Somashekhar business team started looking into assisted-living homes; a fast-growing but not well-watched part of senior care. Chris Rowland began checking out problems like high-priced care and sudden move-outs
The investigation grew bigger when Peter Whoriskey from money-investigations joined in: he found that many facilities werent keeping cognitively-impaired people safe. His work showed how some residents with Alzheimerʼs walked away from these high-cost places and died outside
The in-depth work looked at several key issues:
- Too-high costs for families
- Quick resident removals
- Not-enough rules and checking
- Safety problems in memory care units
The teamʼs hard work showed real problems in places that cost lots of money but dont always give good-enough care for our older folks
