GRAYING POPULATION PROMPTS DEBATE ON ADEQUACY OF

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GRAYING POPULATION PROMPTS DEBATE ON ADEQUACY OF
NATION'S HEALTH CARE LABOR FORCE

Note: Media must register to attend the Sept. 13 opening session (10 - 11 a.m.)

People aged 85 and older make up the fastest-growing age group in the country. Today, there are 3 million men and women in this category; by 2030, there will be more than 8 million.

These demographic changes warn of a coming crisis in the health care labor force: As the population ages, demand for health care services will rise dramatically, but there will be fewer workers aged 16 to 64 to meet that demand.

"How can we meet the challenges of an aging society? How do we face an aging health care labor force? How can we increase a declining pool of potential health care workers? How will market forces affect the quality and size of the necessary labor pool?" asks Lynn Martin, former secretary of labor and chair of a panel of business executives, policymakers and academics convened by the College of Nursing Nursing Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The panel will meet three times between September and March to launch a national dialogue on the adequacy of the nation's health care labor force in light of the graying population. The panel plans to issue a report by April. The first meeting is Sept. 13 at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois, 300 E. Randolph St., Chicago.

The agenda for the meetings includes demographic trends, the health care needs of the elderly, the adequacy of the education and training of health care professionals and the long-term sustainability of the health care labor force to meet the needs of the elderly.

"Many policy analysts are talking about getting more nurses into the mix, or more physicians trained as primary care doctors, or more people into the allied health professions," said Mary Jo Snyder, director of the Nursing Institute. "But there has been no interdisciplinary inquiry into the shortages we face in our nation's health care labor force over the long term. The panel has been convened to begin that inquiry."

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"The issues surrounding the future of the health care labor force require that we move away from thinking about health care labor in terms of nurses or physicians or allied health professionals and that we begin thinking in terms of demographic changes and demands, appropriate levels of care, and appropriate venues for care," said Noreen Sugrue, senior research analyst at the Nursing Institute. "We need to think of health care labor as a team whose components must all be in sync if adequate care is to be delivered."

Panel members represent varying viewpoints from academia, the health care industry and ...

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