Annals of Long Term Care

Released earlier this spring, the Institute of Medicine’s long-awaited report on the readiness of the nation’s healthcare workforce to meet the needs of an aging population is a clarion call for essential healthcare reform. The April 14 report, “Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce,” warns that the workforce is too small and lacks the necessary training to care for the rapidly growing number of older Americans. In fact, the report states, the nation’s healthcare 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.”

To avert this looming healthcare crisis, the report calls for broad changes in our healthcare system. Echoing and building on findings in the American Geriatrics Society’s 2005 “Caring for Older Americans: The Future of Geriatric Medicine” report, the IOM study documents the severe shortage of geriatrics healthcare professionals, other pitfalls, and recommends remedies. These include a range of initiatives to increase recruitment into geriatrics, to ensure that all healthcare providers who care for older adults are adequately trained to meet their unique healthcare needs, and to revamp and improve the way elder healthcare is delivered to improve outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Many of the remedies outlined in the report, which was authored by a panel of experts that included several AGS members, parallel those for which the AGS has long advocated.
This was good news, as was the fact that the IOM report made news. It was featured on the evening news, radio broadcasts, websites, and headlines in news magazines and newspapers from coast to coast and abroad.

“I spoke with six reporters about the IOM report just last week, including USA Today, and The London Times,” said AGS President John B. Murphy, MD, while moderating a panel that discussed the implications of “Retooling for an Aging America” during the AGS’s Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington, DC, in May.

Just as important as the media coverage was the attention the report garnered on Capitol Hill. Two days after the report’s release, the Senate Special Committee on Aging convened a hearing on the healthcare needs of older Americans. Invited to testify before the committee, AGS Board Chair Todd Semla, PharmD, urged legislators to follow through on recommendations that both the AGS and IOM have endorsed.

Previous IOM reports, particularly the Institute’s “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” have significantly raised awareness of critical problems in healthcare delivery and policy. Others, however, have had less impact. The interest that “Rebuilding for an Aging America” has generated in the media and at on Capitol Hill suggest that the report could have considerable traction. To ensure that it does, though, we and other advocates of such care need to build on the report’s findings, and, most important, press policymakers for change.

AGS and its members are already making inroads. Shortly after Dr. Semla testified before Congress, more than 150 AGS members met with nearly 80 senators and representatives during the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting to discuss the report’s findings and related concerns, and to advocate for appropriate healthcare reforms. AGS will also meet in this month with other likeminded organizations to plan collaborative efforts to further the recommendations in the report.

“We have to take this report and run with it,” said Dr. Murphy, urging the crowd that attended the session on the IOM report at the AGS Annual Meeting to action. “When you get back home, take the message to your hospital boards, legislators, newspapers. We need the voters talking to their senators about this. This is a golden opportunity.