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PUBLIC HEALTH
Baby Boomers Face Health Care Crisis, Report Says
John Rowe
John Rowe spoke before Congress on
baby boomer healthcare.
In testimony before Congress in April, John W. Rowe, MD, professor of health policy and management at the Mailman School, warned that the healthcare workforce is unprepared to meet the impending health needs of the large population of baby boomers.
   The testimony was based on the report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, which was issued by an Institute of Medicine committee chaired by Dr. Rowe. According to the report’s findings, as the population of seniors grows to comprise about 20 percent of the U.S. population by 2011, they will face a healthcare workforce that is too small and critically unprepared to meet their health needs.
   “We face an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients, who are living longer with more complex health needs, increasingly outpaces the number of healthcare providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably,” said Dr. Rowe, former chairman and CEO of Aetna. “The sheer number of older patients in the coming years will require trying new models for delivering healthcare and the commitment of greater financial resources. If our aging family members and friends are to live as robustly as they can and in the best health possible, we must have a work force of adequate size and competency to take care of them.”
   Some of the initiatives called for in the report include the immediate training of all healthcare providers in the basics of geriatric care; preparing family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones; and having Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides.
   The report summary can be found at: http://www.iom.edu/?ID=53452.

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