The wild thing about simultaneously working in publishing and events is that I’m always immersed in the future just as much—if not more—than the present. On the magazine side, it’s constant planning for upcoming issues (I can tell you what we have on deck through the end of 2023!). For our HCD Conference +
Expo, we start planning for the next year’s show as soon as the current year’s is over.

Considering you all work on projects that take multiple years to complete, I know you feel me on this point.

So you’ll appreciate the disorienting realization that what you’ve been planning for so long is here—today, not tomorrow. Right now, it’s quite possible that you’re holding this HCD Conference show issue in your hands and reading it (hopefully) from the event in San Antonio. How did that happen?

With that said, you really can’t beat the feeling of reaching the finish line and seeing what you’ve spent so much time on finally take shape. And for me, that’s what this time of year is all about: a culmination of a lot of hard work.

As we dive headfirst into HCD Conference this month, our team is also just walking away from another successful HCD Forum event held Sept. 7-9. This sixth-annual, invitation-only gathering of high-level industry members took place in Napa Valley, Calif., where we ate, drank, and heartily discussed pressing industry challenges—particularly those tied to health equity—and worked through identifying possible built environment solutions.

Forum also brought with it one of my favorite highlights of each year—our HCD 10 Awards Dinner. There, at the Meritage Resort & Spa in Napa Valley, we toasted this year’s class of industry standouts (see our August issue for more on them). And this month, it’s our Rising Stars’ turn. In this issue you’ll find the winners of our 2022 awards program that identifies professionals who have worked in healthcare design for fewer than 10 years but who are already impressing their colleagues, peers, and us. We’ll also have the chance to celebrate them during our Healthcare Design Magazine Awards Luncheon at the HCD Conference.

Finally, this month will also bring the conclusion of our biennial conceptual design competition, Breaking Through. This three-phase program ends with our Breaking Through Finale taking place Monday, Oct. 10, on the general session stage at the show. There, our four finalist teams will present their concepts in real time to our attendees, who will have the opportunity to vote to choose the winner. And then I get to hand that team a giant check for $10,000. In the meantime, you can read about the program’s impressive semifinalists.

See? I told you we had a lot going on. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.