The senior living industry is experiencing significant change. Today’s residents arrive with new expectations compared to earlier generations. Families now play a bigger part in choosing communities. Operators deal with workforce shortages, rising costs, regulatory pressure, and growing demands for coordinated care. Success requires more than offering housing and services. It means building an experience that residents and families truly value, all while maintaining performance across an expanding portfolio.
Few leaders have witnessed this evolution as closely as Kacy Kang. As Co-founder, Principal, and Board Member of Meridian Senior Living, Kacy has spent more than 36 years in senior housing, skilled nursing, hospice, and post-acute care. Today, he guides one of the nation’s leading senior living operators, with communities from Vermont to Florida and as far west as California.
For Kacy, one of the industry’s biggest blind spots is how operators view the people they serve. “I recently attended a healthcare event where the speaker described assisted living residents as shaped by the hardships of the Great Depression, saying that experience influenced how our current residents see the world. He basically argued that residents primarily want basic quality. But that didn’t add up for me. Our median resident age is 88. Most of our residents were born around 1938, right at the end of the Great Depression. By the time they turned 20, they had seen postwar growth and industrialization. They grew up in a service economy that eventually became an experience economy. So, our residents expect much more than many people realize.”
Understanding expectations isn’t just a marketing task for Kacy. It drives operational decisions throughout the organization. He believes the future belongs to operators who keep raising the bar instead of just maintaining it.
People first growth
Kacy’s career began while he was finishing his master’s degree at Columbia University. During an internship at the Jewish Home and Hospital, he discovered his passion for senior care. Before he graduated, Beverly Enterprises recruited him into its Administrator-in-Training program, launching a career that would take him through many areas of healthcare, including a role as president of Amedisys Hospice.
Those years shaped his views on leadership and growth. Meridian started 15 years ago as a small company and grew into a national operator. At one point, Meridian managed more than 140 communities. Still, Kacy doesn’t see growth as the end goal. “Growth is an interesting concept because I think it shouldn’t be measured by quantity, but by quality. At some point, we had to make the hard call to divest our functionally obsolete communities. It was tough, but it led to profitability. That’s similar to the 80/20 rule. Not only did the economics change for Meridian, but the biggest benefit was that our field teams started winning, which boosted morale and dedication.”
That decision sharpened Meridian’s focus and built momentum across the company. Success on the community level strengthened employee engagement and reinforced a leadership philosophy rooted in trust, accountability, and continuity. For Kacy, culture starts with the people at the leadership table. “Some of us have worked together for 20 or even 30 years, through different companies, economic cycles, growth, and tough times. You just can’t manufacture that kind of trust and shared experience. We know each other’s strengths, we challenge one another, and we stay aligned. Most importantly, after all these years, we still choose to work together.” That consistency runs deeper than just senior leadership. Meridian’s mindfulness program, introduced several years ago, shows Kacy’s belief that employee well-being and operational performance are closely tied. “We take care of ourselves so we can take care of others.”
Lessons from China
One of the most influential chapters in Meridian’s development took place outside the US. Over six years, Meridian helped establish more than 26 continuing care retirement and senior healthcare communities across mainland China. What began as an effort to share operating expertise evolved into something else entirely. “We went to China with an operating model based largely on our own approach to senior care, but we quickly saw the tremendous focus Chinese culture places on respect for elders, family inclusion, and hospitality. It caused us to look more closely at our own mission: ‘Enriching the lives of our residents, families and employees through extraordinary experiences.’ We realized we needed to place even greater emphasis on the word ‘families.’”
Meridian’s experience in China prompted the company to rethink aspects of the customer relationship. Family members often influence community selection, remain involved throughout a resident’s stay, and help shape perceptions of care and service. “There once was a time when someone moved into an assisted living community and, in many cases, remained there for the rest of their life. That’s no longer something operators can take for granted. Today’s families are more informed, more price-sensitive and have higher service expectations. If those expectations aren’t met, they’re willing to make a change. Our experience in China reinforced that length of stay isn’t driven solely by the care we provide the resident. It’s also influenced by the relationship we build with the family. That means greater communication, inclusion and engagement, making families feel that they’re part of the community and part of their loved one’s experience.”
The lessons learned influenced Meridian’s approach to memory care. The company’s Montessori Moments in Time program combines practices developed over years of operational experience, acquisitions, and international work, including programs that were later introduced in China.
Data meets care
While relationships remain central to Kacy’s thinking, information plays an equally important role. Meridian relies on analytics to track labor, spending, occupancy, move-ins, move-outs, and operational performance across its portfolio. The goal is to turn information into action, not just collect it.
Supporting that strategy means working with technology partners who can evolve alongside your organization. Groove Technology Solutions has partnered with Meridian for more than 12 years, helping over 70 communities with television, WiFi, internet services, network engineering, access control, cabling, communications, and security systems. “Our relationship with Groove has been built on trust, performance, affordability, and, most importantly, their ability to deliver when we need them. What truly sets Groove apart is their responsiveness. When an issue pops up at one of our communities, they step in, take ownership, and work alongside us to find a solution that’s both effective and financially responsible.”
For Meridian, the stakes extend beyond keeping systems online. “They understand that in senior living, technology isn’t simply infrastructure. It directly affects the experience of our residents, families, and employees. After more than 12 years together, Groove continues to earn our trust, one community and one challenge at a time.
“We’ve leveraged technologies such as Power BI to create scorecards and dashboards. The operant word is ‘immediate’ daily information. This allows us to pivot quickly. We have a separate team that reads the tea leaves. They are basically our Oracles and leverage their understanding of the data and then collaborate with field teams to formulate strategies.”
What matters is not the dashboard itself, but the ability to act on what it reveals. As Meridian looks ahead, technology is becoming less about reporting and more about communication. “We need innovation that isn’t gimmicky. The real revolution in healthcare is immediate, accurate communication. We need tech that facilitates coordination of care from all disciplines so the community can immediately interface with the PCP, ancillary services, pharmacy, family, POA and anyone else within the resident’s universe that they deem necessary to have knowledge.”
Kacy sees opportunities to accelerate that level of connectivity beyond the US. At the same time, Kacy’s years in hospice continue to influence how he thinks about the broader healthcare landscape. As senior living costs rise, he remains focused on access. “Senior living is predominantly a private-pay world. I believe the most recent National Investment Center for Senior Housing & Care data indicates that the average monthly rent is just shy of $7,000 blended across assisted living and memory care. There’s no Medicare lifeline, and I wonder if the average American can afford this. So, for me, the broader question of healthcare really is access.”
Therefore, cost is a concern guiding Meridian’s efforts to bring medical clinics directly into its communities, creating closer connections among housing, healthcare, and ongoing support. For Kacy, the next phase of senior living will depend on stronger communication, deeper family engagement, and a willingness to keep evolving alongside the people operators serve.
