Let ’s Work Together To Improve Care For Older Adults With Complex Needs

In the three minutes it takes to read this blog post, an average of twenty-one people will turn age sixty-five, joining the largest cohort of older adults that our country has ever known. The simple truth is that we are living and working longer, which also means that we are redefining the meaning of “later life” and that older people are enriching our communities and society in new and vital ways. But many of us won’t enjoy a gentle retirement. Older adults are arguably the fastest growing subset of what are increasingly called “complex” patients—those with significant health and social needs, often including several chronic health conditions. Figuring out how to provide better care to them—care that works—is both a moral and economic imperative. When we think of the phrase “people with complex needs,” it is important to remember the word “complex” has multiple meanings. We might be talking, for example, about patients with some combination of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, or renal failure. Other patients might have one very serious condition like advanced Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, patients often have many unmet social needs that can further hamper their efforts to improve their health. In fact, we learned in a recent survey, funded by the Commonwealth Fund, that while 95 percent of patients with complex needs have regular access to care, 58 percent of the patients with complex needs did not have a care coordinator helping them navigate th...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending GrantWatch Organization and Delivery Quality Source Type: blogs