Health workforce needs a boost

A major American report says big changes are needed to prepare for the imminent wave of ageing baby boomers.

A groundbreaking American report has highlighted the urgent need to boost the healthcare workforce in time for the wave of ageing baby boomers.

It warned that without significant interventions, healthcare providers would reach crisis point as the demand for care outpaced the supply of caregivers.

The report, entitled ‘Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce’, calls for bold initiatives to provide all healthcare workers and informal caregivers with basic geriatric care training.

The Future Health Care Workforce for Older Americans Committee which wrote the report, also recommended an increase in State and Federal funding for long term care to improve the recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists.

The committee nominated 2030 – the year when the last of the baby boomers will reach the age of 65 – as a target date for these key reforms, adding that efforts to reach them must begin immediately.

“The sheer number of older patients in the coming years will require trying new models for delivering health care and the commitment of greater financial resources,” said Committee Chair John W. Rowe, Professor of Health Policy and Management from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“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.”

The report validated other findings that the workforce shortage is more critical in eldercare than other sectors of the health industry, while emphasising the need for general geriatric training for all health care professionals as the population ages.

Government was urged to step in to supplement pay, with the report citing that the median wage for direct-care workers in 2005 was only $US9.56 an hour.

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