Please join us for a presentation and panel discussion on the landscape, challenges, and advocacy surrounding the eldercare workforce, as covered in the Spring 2016 issue of Generations journal.

Much of the cost of healthcare and long-term care in the United States is concentrated in a relatively small share of the population: many of those who cost the most to Medicare and Medicaid are older adults. Most of these “high-cost” older adults are living with multiple chronic conditions, and will require a workforce with specific skills and knowledge—of geriatric syndromes, family caregiving, supportive services, multiple conditions, dementing illnesses, and prognosis at the end of life.

The demand for eldercare services continues to increase dramatically, but the rate of eldercare workforce reform is failing to keep pace. New financial incentives are being tested and new service delivery models piloted, yet the way we recruit, train, and support those expected to bear the weight of these new systems has changed very little. A robust, competent eldercare workforce is not being forged; it is simply being presumed.

The arc of investment in the eldercare workforce is rising far too slowly compared to the arc of expectations for our nation’s eldercare workers. Conferences are held, research papers written, commissions empaneled and “innovation” grants fielded, but it is mostly apparent that in each of these, the workforce is at best considered an afterthought. Why is there so little sense of urgency?

To explore this question, ASA published the Spring 2016 issue of Generations on “America’s Eldercare Workforce: Who Will Be There to Care?” We invite you to join us at a special briefing event to hear from ASA Board Chair Robert Blancato, Generations Editorial Advisory Board Chair Susan Reinhard, and our Guest Editors for the Spring 2016 issue Steven L. Dawson, consultant and founding president of PHI in the South Bronx, New York City, and Christopher A. Langston, former program director of The John A. Hartford Foundation. Dawson and Langston will moderate a panel discussion, featuring the following six experts who contributed to Spring 2016 Generations:

Amy York, Executive Director, Eldercare Workforce Alliance; Daniel Wilson, PHI Director of Federal Affairs; Manmeet Kaur, Executive Director and Founder, City Health Works; Terry Fulmer, President, The John A. Hartford Foundation; Robyn Stone, Executive Director, LeadingAge Center for Applied Research; and Nancy Lundebjerg, CEO, The American Geriatrics Society.