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AGS/ADGAP Facts and Figures
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What is the IOM Recommending?
In Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Healthcare Workforce (released in April, 2008), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that the future workforce "will be woefully inadequate in its capacity to meet the large demand for health services for older adults if current patterns of care and of the training of providers continue." The number of older Americans will nearly double to 70 million by 2030, the report notes, when the youngest of the baby boomers will have reached retirement age.
"Retooling for an Aging America" echoes and builds on findings from AGS' 2005 "Caring for Older Americans: The Future of Geriatric Medicine" report. It documents the severe and growing shortage of geriatrics healthcare professionals, and calls for a wide range of sweeping initiatives to increase recruitment into and retention in geriatrics and ensure that all healthcare providers who care for older adults are adequately trained to meet their unique healthcare needs. Many of the recommendations parallel AGS' priorities.
The committee responsible for the IOM report concluded that the definition of the healthcare workforce must be expanded to include anyone involved in a patient's care: healthcare professionals, direct-care workers, informal caregivers (usually family and friends) and patients themselves. Their IOM report recommends that all of these individuals have the essential data, knowledge, and tools to provide high quality healthcare. The committee proposes a concurrent three-pronged approach:
- Enhance the geriatric competencies of the entire workforce;
- Increase the recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and caregivers
- Improve the way that care is delivered.
Its specific recommendations can be found at: http://www.americangeriatrics.org/policy/iom_retooling.shtml#3
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What is the Eldercare Workforce Alliance?
The Eldercare Workforce Alliance is a group of 28 national organizations, joined together to address the immediate and future workforce crisis in caring for an aging America. It is co-convened by AGS Deputy Executive Vice President & COO Nancy Lundebjerg and PHI President Steven Dawson who were elected by the Alliance members to these positions in November.
To address our nation’s worsening eldercare crisis, the Alliance will build a caring and competent eldercare workforce—joining in partnership with older adults, their families and other unpaid caregivers—to provide high-quality, culturally-sensitive, person-directed, family-focused care, and improve the quality of life for older adults and their families. Alliance members believe that:
- An essential step in addressing our fragmented health and long-term care system is to adopt care models that provide well-coordinated, person-directed and family-focused services across settings.
- All unpaid caregivers—including family, friends and other caregivers—should be supported and have opportunities to acquire the needed skills, knowledge, and information to care appropriately for older adults.
- Resolving the workforce crisis requires addressing recruitment, retention, training and compensation issues across the direct-care and professional health care workforce—which is essential to improve the quality of care and quality of life for older adults.
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What solutions is the Alliance proposing?
Alliance members believe that we can and must create a health care workforce that meets the needs of older adults and their families. As recommended by the IOM, our proposed solutions include:
Strengthen the Direct-Care Workforce
- Require a minimum of 120 hours of training for certified nursing aides and home health aides, including explicit geriatric care and gerontological content; and create minimum training standards/competencies for non-clinical direct-care workers.
- Increase compensation for direct-care workers through means such as: a) establishing minimum standards for wages and benefits paid under public programs, and b) targeting reimbursements to ensure that public funds directly improve compensation for direct-care workers.
Address Clinician and Faculty Shortages
- Increase compensation for clinical professionals and educators with geriatric and gerontological expertise—they will be needed to care for our frailest elders and their families, and to help educate the rest of the workforce.
- Increase funding for federal and state programs that support development of geriatrics faculty and clinician training—such as Title VII and Title VIII.
- Implement federal and state programs that provide incentives—such as loan forgiveness—to those entering careers caring for older adults.
Ensure a Competent Workforce
- Encourage agencies and organizations that certify and regulate the eldercare workforce to require demonstrated and continued competence in the care and treatment of older adults.
Re-design Health Care Delivery
- Disseminate and adopt cost-effective, comprehensive care coordination models that are evidence-based, and fully fund care coordination components that have demonstrated measurable success.
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Who Funds the Alliance?
The Alliance is funded by grants from the Atlantic Philanthropies and the John A. Hartford Foundation as well as contributions from its 28 members. It is a project of the Tides Center and the Tides Advocacy Fund.
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