Foreword |
For several decades, policy experts and healthcare professionals have made projections regarding the coming baby boomer bubble of an aging American population. The recent Institute of Medicine report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, details the dramatic changes in the size and composition of the aging American population and the challenges this will create for health professionals of all kinds. Those projections have come to fruition, creating an urgent need for health care professionals and nurses in particular to have a strong base of knowledge and skills in care of the older adult. Demographic realities will create a doubling of adults over the age of 65 in the very near term, adding to the rapidly increasing number of individuals in this country who are termed the oldest old. Amazingly, Hallmark Cards reports that annually it sells over 85,000 cards for centenarian birthdays.
The aging of America has created a dynamic and changing perspective on aging. Older adults are living longer while maintaining active and full employment, social, and community lives. However, this longevity is accompanied by a concurrent increase in chronic illnesses treated with sophisticated technological and pharmacological interventions. This enormously complex array of treatments creates the need for a health professional workforce that is prepared to meet the unique physiological and psychosocial needs of older adults. The unique skill sets that are required to provide safe, high quality and effective care to older adults are not intuitively acquired, but rather come only from a focused approach to developing new views and knowledge that will shape and define how care will be delivered to the older adult.
Unfortunately, despite the growth in the population of older adults, the nursing profession has not seen a concomitant increase in the proportion of the nursing workforce with a specialization in geriatrics. However, increasingly nurses and other professionals are seeking the specific skill sets necessary to deliver high quality care to older adults. Much of the enhanced focus on geriatrics comes as a result of the important and substantial support that has been made available to the nursing profession by the John A. Hartford Foundation. Through this support, an enhanced focus on both geriatric practice and research has blossomed in the profession and nursing professionals have increasingly sought the specific knowledge and skills necessary. As they seek this knowledge, they also seek the professional validation represented by certification by a national body as a specialized geriatric clinician. Certification is an external validation of competence to meet specific and important needs is the hallmark of excellence in nursing practice.
This new publication is an important addition to the resources available for nurses who seek certification as a geriatric clinician. This resource, designed for the generalist baccalaureate-educated nursing clinician who desires validation of expert knowledge and skills for care of the older adult, also recognizes the reality of practice. Generalist practice is almost uniformly geriatric practice. The preponderance of older adults in today’s acute care facilities, long-term care settings, and communities should create an awareness among all nursing professionals that the knowledge and skills assessed through geriatric certification are a basic foundation for safe practice today.
In this book, the tools and clear presentation of information related to the actual testing process provide the learner with a framework for confidence as he or she prepares for the exam. More important, however, is the elaborate presentation of the certification content and the attention to the important physical and psychosocial elements of the human aging process.
The American Nurses Association Scope and Standards of Practice Statement expresses clearly the central role nurses play in protecting and assuring that safe and effective care is delivered. This statement notes: “Today as in the past, nursing remains pivotal in improving the health status of the public and ensuring safe, effective, quality care.” This mandate for nursing to engage in safe, effective, high-quality care cannot be met for older adults absent a strong base of knowledge regarding the unique needs of this population. As nurses strive to engage in this level of practice, certification will validate our commitment to providing the best care possible. This book will enable nursing professionals to acquire certification as a geriatric specialist and provide them with the ability to achieve this important and professionally responsible goal.
Geraldine Bednash, PhD, RN, FAAN
Executive Director
American Association of Colleges of Nursing