Schools of medicine, nursing, and public health should immediately begin to expand geriatric training and graduate more specialists to avert a health-care crisis as the nation’s 78 million baby boomers begin to retire, a report issued today by the Institute of Medicine concludes.

The report, “Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce,” points out that the first baby boomers will reach age 65 by 2011, and warns that the nation’s health-care work force isn’t ready for them. It calls for a series of reforms, from more training to higher pay, to be completed by 2030, when the last of the baby boomers turns 65.

The prospect of growing numbers of patients, many of them elderly, facing a shortage of health care has prompted a recent growth spurt in medical schools nationally. Some are also starting programs aimed specifically at meeting the needs of elderly patients.

John W. Rowe, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, led the committee that wrote the Institute of Medicine report. He warned of “an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients, who are living longer with more complex health needs, increasingly outpaces the number of health-care providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably.”

He added, “The sheer number of older patients in the coming years will require trying new models for delivering health care and the commitment of greater financial resources.”

Not only are there too few geriatric specialists, but they turn over quickly, the report says.

The report also recommends that in order to retain their licenses and certification, health-care workers be required to demonstrate that they are capable of performing basic geriatric care. —Katherine Mangan