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Although there are still too few geriatric specialists, the fields of nursing, medicine, and social work are pushing in the right direction to make sure their practitioners have basic training in geriatrics.
Healthcare for older adults requires a knowledgeable, professional workforce at both the generalist and specialist levels. As America's 77 million baby boomers age, the impact on the healthcare system will be immense. Yet less than 1 percent of nurses, physicians, dentists, social workers, and other medical professionals have geriatric certification (Mezey et al., 2008). Clearly, we lack an adequate workforce prepared to meet the needs of older adults in years to come (Institute of Medicine, 2008).
The time has never been more urgent to expand this geriatric workforce. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a framework and an impetus for expanding current geriatric workforce initiatives. While continuing to train geriatric specialists, educators have begun to direct their efforts to assure that entry-level and graduate students in the health professions have minimum competencies in geriatrics. Nurses, doctors, social workers, and others practicing today had virtually no exposure to geriatrics in their educational programs, so attention is being paid to assure that professionals now practicing have access to continuing education in the care of older adults.
This article describes ongoing initiatives that address geriatric workforce competency and how these efforts support and can be supported by the goals of the ACA. We will initially address the impact of the ACA on geriatric education, then describe geriatric competencies in nursing, medicine, and social work as they relate to undergraduate and graduate education and practicing professionals, and the renewed importance of competency in interdisciplinary education and practice in the care of older adults. We close with observations and recommendations that expand on the relationship between geriatric workforce education and healthcare reform.
How Does Healthcare Reform Affect Geriatric Workforce Education?
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. Among the ACA's key provisions was an increase in the healthcare workforce. While not specific to older adults, the ACA includes workforce provisions regarding the number, educational preparation, and recruitment of practitioners; establishment of community-based teaching health centers and oral health training centers; and development of interdisciplinary mental...