The American medical system has been warned: Without urgent action to improve geriatric care in the long-term, millions of aging Baby Boomers will overwhelm the health-care system in the near future.
A report on the health-care outlook for the nation's 78 million boomers, some of whom are near retirement, is alarming in its dire predictions of crisis-level shortages of health-care workers for older patients, as well as serious gaps in training to treat the elderly.
In a strikingly frank assessment of what awaits retiring boomers, the Institute of Medicine report said the health-care workforce is utterly unprepared to handle the flood of geriatric health problems the aging population will suffer. The study says there are nowhere near enough geriatric specialists in all health fields to deal with the complex health needs of boomers, all of whom will turn 65 by 2030.
Researchers found that there are roughly 7,100 doctors certified in geriatrics in the U.S., or one physician per every 2,500 older Americans. Compounding the problem is the high turnover rate among nurse's aides that averages 71 percent annually, plus the fact that up to 90 percent of home-health aides leave their jobs within the first two years.
The institute targeted low pay and less training of caregivers to the elderly as critical areas for improvement. The national average for a nurse's aide at a nursing home is $10.67 an hour, it said, while noting that there are few training requirements for home-care aides.
Obviously, compensation and competence can directly impact the quality of care given. Even doctors who specialize in geriatric medicine make less money than their counterparts in other fields, in part because a larger percentage of such specialists' income comes from Medicare and Medicaid payments, the report said.Immediate action is urged to strengthen the work force in the long term. While today's elderly tend to be healthier and live longer than previous generations, the report said, people over 65 have more complicated conditions and health-care needs than younger patients.
Besides more formal training in the treatment of older patients, the federal study stressed that all health-care workers - even family members and other informal caregivers who assist the elderly - be trained in basic geriatric care.
This is a crisis that can only be blunted by measures initiated now to ensure that more and better-paid professionals are equipped with a good geriatric knowledge base and skills to handle the challenge the nation faces when the baby boomers finally come of old age.
Search
advertisement
