4 • SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019 • CAREGIVER
HOME HEALTH AIDES NEEDED
Demand for home health care increasing as state faces shortage of workers
While aging in place is the goal for the
vast majority of seniors, in practice, that
comes with its challenges.
Even if skilled nursing isn’t required, the
need for assistance with getting up and
dressed for the day, bathing, cooking and
other daily life chores often increases with
age. Caregivers, particularly those with children
and jobs, can’t always be there to lend
a hand, and that’s where home health aides
can be an invaluable resource.
The trouble is that, not only in Pennsylvania
but across the nation, the number of
openings already exceeds the number of
workers in the field of home health care,
and that gap is expected to grow as the
number of Americans age 85 and older
increases.
“The demand for those jobs is skyrocketing,”
said Tom Threlkeld, director of communications
for the National Association
for Home Care and Hospice, a trade association
that represents 33,000 home care and
hospice organizations nationwide.
“It’s a matter of are we producing enough
people, and are enough people going into
these lines of work to satisfy the demand of
this massive demographic change going on
in this country?”
According to a 2017 study by Mercer
human resources consulting firm, the U.S.
is likely to face a shortage of 446,300 home
health aides by the year 2025. Then, in
January 2019, a report by Paraprofessional
Healthcare Institute, which describes itself
as “a worker advocacy organization focused
on the direct care workforce, which consists
of personal care aides, home health aides
and nursing assistants,” painted a more
alarming picture.
Using projections from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics and factoring in turnover
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BY KAREN PRICE
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