Aging Boomers Boost Demand for Health Care Workers
Posted on Dec 31, 2012
The aging baby boomers pose a number of concerns to the health care industry. As they near their retirement age, health care providers are worried about addressing to the growing number of significant and various health needs. Baby boomers is a term that is used for a complete generation of people who were born in the post World War II era. The demographics differs from region to region, but grossly speaking, this is a generation that was born somewhere between the years 1946 to 1967.
The term baby boomers is used to describe the sudden boom in babies or birth rates seen during this period. This was an era when war veterans returned to their homes and they were forced to assimilate. To help in their integration process, the governments of different nations passed various bills and reforms which made home ownership, higher education very accessible to the majority of the class. Loans with either little or no interest were easily made available to people and this led to a boom in the financial, social and domestic sector.
Millions of people got married and most of them started their families within months of their marriage. As life was simple, jobs were plentiful, families and the nation as a whole thrived. The average number of babies that were born to a family during these years was around 3.5. The population grew by millions during this post war era and therefore this generation is known as baby boomers.
Now, six decades later, the wave is nearing its retirement or old age and with old age, the health concerns are also on the rise. They make up around 78 million citizens in the United States alone. Although the boomers who are aged 65 and older only make up 12% of the total population of the country, they still account for the greatest number of people who are admitted to hospitals (35%), nursing homes (90%) and clinics or are brought into emergency response centers (38%).
The aging baby boomers make up the majority of people who require the medical care/attention. Including the youngest to the oldest of baby boomers, they together make up around 28% of the total population. 60% of these are diagnosed with chronic medical condition which requires individual medical attention. With these figures, it is evident that the healthcare industry is soon going to face a shortage of healthcare service providers especially in the nursing sector as the nurse to patient ration continuously drops.
The aging citizens require individual nursing assistance; which means that whether the nurses are employed at their own home or the nursing home, there has to be a nurse available for every old individual (in most cases). This, coupled with the fact that majority of the nursing workforce actually is from the baby boomer generation brings forth an intensified demand for Licensed Vocational Nurses.
The shortage of nursing and other medical care providing staff has led to an increase in employment opportunities in the health care sector. Almost 200 jobs in the different healthcare departments pop up every 10 days and the main reason owing to this boom in healthcare employment is the massive population that is nearing the retirement age.
More and more of the aged baby boomer population have been diagnosed with chronic medical conditions ranging from diabetes, arthritis, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension among others. All of these conditions require constant monitoring, check up and treatment. A massage therapist and physical therapist can often prove to be quite indispensable in providing relief to the patients from the pain and restricted movements. Both of these specialists work with the muscles of the patient to either assist them in movements or to provide relief from muscular pain. For more information about what these professionals are responsible for, check out http://www.masseusesalary.net or http://www.physicaltherapistsalarydata.net.
In fact the ageing boomers have also built up many employment opportunities for the health information technician, dental hygienists, dietitians and medical laboratory technicians. The medical records technicians have an important role to play in any health care institute as they have to manage all the old and new records of the patients in both physical filing systems and computers. Similarly, the aging citizens require constant advice from service providers as dietitians and dental hygienists who guide the patients about proper diet and oral hygiene respectively. More about the career at DentalHygienistSalaryHQ.net.