Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) awarded The Washington Post’s Memory, Inc. with a Best in Business Award in the Health/Science category. The project – which also won an honorable mention in the Investigative category – found that patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive problems walk away from assisted-living facilities just about every day in America, a pattern of neglect by an industry that charges families an average of $6,000 a month for the explicit promise of safeguarding their loved ones. Since 2018, more than 2,000 people have wandered away from assisted-living and dementia-care units or been left unattended outside, and nearly 100 people died — though the exact number is unknowable because no one is counting.
The judges shared, “This series of articles maps out an underreported area of the health-care industry that impacts so many American families at some point in their lives. Each article is compelling and reported deeply and with great care and sensitivity. Particularly impressive is the surveillance video obtained while reporting. By documenting the financial failures of the segment, the series casts a harsh light on the U.S. health-care industry as a whole. It also underscores the lack of regulation and penalties faced by facilities and their owners when dementia patients wander off. The articles spurred the Senate Special Committee on Aging to action, which demanded information from the leading companies in the segment and scheduled a hearing.”
In addition, The Post took home five other Honorable Mentions in the large publication category:
The winners will be recognized next month at SABEW’s annual conference in Chicago. The full list of winners is available here.