As the first of the nation’s 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a healthcare work force that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, calls for new initiatives, including training all healthcare providers in the basics of geriatric care and preparing family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans should pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides, said the committee that wrote the report.
The committee set a target date of 2030--the year by which all baby boomers will have turned 65 or older--for the necessary reforms to take place.
Healthcare workers should be required to demonstrate competence in basic geriatric care to maintain their licenses and certifications, recommends the report. Also, it calls on the healthcare professions and regulators to consider expanding the roles and responsibilities of healthcare providers at various levels of training, and recommends that the federally required minimum number of hours of training for direct-care workers be raised from 75 to at least 120. Read the report.
