A report released earlier this month by two community health faculty warns about the effects of the aging baby boom generation on the nation's long-term care system.
The report, "Out of the Shadows: Envisioning a Brighter Future for Long-Term Care in America," touches on issues surrounding the quality of the nation's health care provision and was written by Professor of Medical Science Vincent Mor and Assistant Professor of Community Health Edward Miller.
Mor chairs the community health department and is the former director of the University's Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, while Miller is a professor in the public policy and American institutions and political science departments, in addition to being involved with the center. The two authored the report at the request of the National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care, a non-partisan organization charged with improving the country's long-term care system, which includes care for both the elderly and people with chronic illnesses.
The two were chosen to write the report because they are "smart, credible and objective," said Buck Stinson, a member of the commission and president of Genworth Financial, a financial services company that sells long-term care insurance.
The purpose of the report was to inform the commission's discussions on potential areas of concern and provide policy recommendations necessary to address the "long-term care conundrum facing the nation," Miller said.
"The report is a framework for (the commission) to work off of," Miller said. "It is meant to inform them, but it is also a call to action."
The report highlights six issue areas that must be addressed by policymakers in order to create a "fair, comprehensive, affordable, and efficient long-term care system," the report states. The six areas include financing, resources, infrastructure, workforce, regulation and the integration of health information technology into the long-term care system.
The report begins with a discussion on the increased financing that will be necessary to improve the quality of long-term care in the United States. One task, according to Mor, will be "finding the social will to pay for what's going to be needed in the next 20 to 30 years." In order to raise that funding, the country needs "significant and serious saving," Mor said.
The report also addresses the need to improve the quality of the long-term care workforce. Currently, nursing home employees are among the lowest paid workers in the nation, according to Miller. The key to improving the quality of the long-term care workforce, Miller said, is to attract better caregivers by increasing salaries, decision-making power and opportunities for career advancement.
Improvements in financing and human resources will help to improve a third area of concern highlighted by the report: the organizational structure and environment in which long-term care services are delivered. To do this, the system will need a "cultural change," which should include decreasing the "institutional" feel of nursing homes and empowering residents to make their own decisions, Miller said.
Garnering attention for the issue will not be an easy task, Mor said. "There are many issues that are pressing in the U.S. health care system. When looking at all of society, long-term care doesn't seem important. But when looking at the elderly population, it's a huge issue."
Moreover, long-term care is "an unpleasant topic," Miller said. "People don't like to think about it."
However, Miller said, the commission's prominent members, which include former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., and former Speaker of the House and U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, will help it gain national notice. "There are people on the commission to whom people will pay attention," Miller said.
Brown students are among those who should be paying attention to this issue, Miller advised. "As students enter the workforce, they will likely begin planning for retirement, and that includes planning for long-term healthcare," he said.
Moreover, in the short-term, students should be thinking about their grandparents. According to Mor, college students can begin to help their parents and grandparents become "better consumers of long-term care."
"The wealth that has been saved in the family unit is, in many cases, going to be depleted very quickly trying to take care of the elderly in the family," warned Stinson, who is trying to initiate multi-generational conversations about long-term care. He predicted that Medicare will not be able to carry the weight of the aging baby boom generation in the next few decades. When it comes to funding long-term care in the future, he said, "Our generation might be the one to pay the price."
