The Patients Are Coming! The Patients Are Coming!

Only HIE Can Handle the Silver Surge

At the risk of spilling yet more ink over one of the most ink drenched generations in American history, it is worth noting how much the baby boomers have affected American life as their presence grew, and how they will also affect American life with their passing. When cohorts of this size come and go once flooded rivers will come to seem like dwindling streams by comparison. Through sheer size, the boomers have transformed everything they have touched. From the cultural shifts of the ‘60s to the development and advancement of the technology world we now live in, they have been a transformational force, for better or worse, which has left a distinctive mark on the way we live. Their numbers have influenced everything and will continue to do so. According to M. Thornhill’s The Boomer Project, nearly 11,000 boomers turn 50 every day — one every eight seconds – and this trend will continue for 19 years. Boomer Marketing News reports that by 2030, there will be more than 65 million Americans over age 65.

And their next venture is healthcare.

Analysts have been “worrying” about the boomer bulge’s effect on the U.S. healthcare system for years, and the chickens are now coming home to roost….and they’ll be roosting for a while. While the first of the cohort turned 65 in 2011, an estimated “65 million boomers will enter the fragmented, underfunded healthcare arena for older people. Today the elderly constitute 12% of the US population and use approximately 35% of all medications. Medication use will likely grow with increased use of multiple medications to treat illnesses and increase longevity. Over the next 20 years, one in every five Americans will be over 65 years of age, and even more important, the 85-plus cohort will expand to 15 million over the next 40 years — about the same length of time that our recent [medical school] graduates will be in practice.” Continue Reading to Full Article…