Milken Institute Review Article: Who Will Take Care of Mom?
The Milken Institute Review has published an article, "Who Will Take Care of Mom?," examining the growing mismatch between the needs of America's aging population and the capacity of the health care workforce to meet those needs.
As the number of adults age 65 and older is projected to increase by 34% by 2037, authors Diane Ty and Andrew Friedson highlight a shortage of board-certified geriatricians, with just 7,400 nationwide, or about 1.3 for every 10,000 older adults. Contributing factors include limited geriatrics education in medical schools and low compensation in the field, leading to a shortage of specialists.
Family caregivers are increasingly filling the gap, they note, with 53 million caregivers providing unpaid care, often at significant personal and financial cost. Four strategies are put forward to address these challenges:
- investing in healthier aging
- building geriatric care capacity
- supporting family caregivers
- accelerating tech-enabled home care.
The article calls for urgent reforms to expand geriatrics training, improve compensation and align workforce planning with the realities of an aging nation.
The authors also mention significant contributions of JAHF and its grantees and partners in addressing these issues, including the Age-Friendly Health System movement and the Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation (GEDA) Program.
Read the article.
Learn more about the AFHS initiative.
Go to GEDA's website.
Learn more about JAHF's co-support of AFHS.
Learn more about JAHF's co-support of GEDA.
