So, we had to develop a structure for a permanent doctor. That was helpful, but the doctor has to have referral sources, and we have to help people navigate through the sub-specialists. But older people are oftentimes slightly intimidated by the medical community, and they wait for things to get far enough out of line before they call the doctor—now you have to have excessive intervention. Whether it’s the blood pressure that’s out of line or a pain in your neck, now you’re debilitated because you can’t lift or move.
What we really need in aging is a much more comprehensive plan to coordinate all of these issues, and you can’t do that in 11 minutes. You need a doctor that can spend 30 or 40 minutes with you. That’s what I wanted to pioneer. And from doing that, we found out that if you spend 30 or 40 minutes regulating drug use and balancing when you go see your sub-specialist, you have a whole lot less hospital time.
Do you think your upbringing added anything to the vision and drive behind Erickson Retirement Communities?
Having come from a big family, I’ve learned the value of both the social side and the competitive side of living. When you’re one of 14 kids, you learn some competition in social skills just to survive. So I do think that probably had a lot of influence on my pioneering and engineering a concept like these largescale, social-based service communities for seniors.
And almost every resident that comes in does so for a small reason and finds out that there is a giant reason to be here. I hear this from the families more than anyone else. They saw their mother somewhat limited, isolated, not doing very well, and all of a sudden life just expanded more than [she] could have ever imagined. When they get here, they find out it was the most brilliant choice of their life, and it unfolds years of engagement and involvement.
But society tells you not to make this decision. Society tells you to hang on with white knuckles and that it’s a slippery slope. That is not true. I don’t understand why, as a society, we are so demeaning to people who are aging when we could be giving them positive messages.
The worst decision you can make is that white-knuckle decision to hang on because it will only get worse. I’m a big believer that we have to come up with a better way of communicating value in aging instead of this tendency to say, “Stay where you are and tough it out.”
How is Erickson spreading that message?
One of the great ways through which we’re reaching seniors is Retirement Living TV and The Erickson Tribune. The Erickson Tribune is a newspaper that we send to more than three million households every month, and Retirement Living TV is moving across the country to be the dominant television station that talks to the senior population.
We believe that the 25 years of retirement are, in fact, your freedom years. This is when you get to express who you are and what you believe about life. You’ve accumulated enough to live, and now you get to decide, “What is it that is of value to me in life?” That’s the message that Retirement Living TV and The Erickson Tribune are spreading. “Let’s pay attention to these freedom years, and even if society thinks you’re a has-been, you’re really not.”
Next month, John Erickson talks about why his company’s financial program has been so successful and stable throughout the decades and the reasons people choose to live at an Erickson-developed community.