Age Discrimination in Healthcare Industry: Issues, Contributing Factors and Proposed Solutions

This report discusses the issue of age discrimination in healthcare industry, its contributing factors and proposed solutions. It also provides a short-term and long-term plan to mitigate age discrimination of elderly people.

Running head: PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS IN NURSING
PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS IN NURSING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Part A: Assessment and analysis of the identified issue
Identification of the issue: Elderly adults are one of the major consumers of the health care
industry. World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that the almost 23.1 per cent global
burden for disease can be accredited to the illness of the individuals aged over 60 years or
more (Wyman, Shiovitz-Ezra & Bengel, 2018). However, these elderly people have faces
discrimination during their treatment from medical professionals, nurses and even from the
doctors. This ‘Ageism’ can have detrimental effect on the health and well- being of these
elderly patient (Allen, 2015). As elderly people are one of the major consumers of health
care, this ageism may even increase the burden on the health care industry if no preventive
measures were to taken against it (Nelson, 2016). Therefore, the analysis and discussion topic
of this report will be ‘Age Discrimination in Healthcare Industry’.
Background of the issue: Modern technological and medicinal advancement in health care
system has steadily increased the demography of elderly people throughout the world.
‘Geriatrics’ and ‘Gerontology’ is one of the most ignored and belittling specialisation topic
amongst the medical professionals but the demand for it is ever increasing and will continue
to grow even more (Ivanov, 2018). Additionally, due to their physical limitation, elderly
people need major assistance from nurses as well. Lack of specialist in geriatrics department
is also one of the reason behind this. According to the AGS or American Geriatrics Society,
in 2013, total numbers of full time geriatricians were around 4000 whereas the demand was
more than 20000 (Americangeriatrics.org, 2019). The demand will also increase about 45 per
cent in 2025 from 2013 (Americangeriatrics.org, 2019). Following Figure 1 depicts
disparities in supply and demand in geriatrics work force. Therefore, immediate preventive
measures need to be taken in this regard.

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Figure 1: Disparities in supply and demand in geriatrics work force. Source:
(Americangeriatrics.org, 2019)
Current scenario of Age discrimination in healthcare industry: Reports have suggested
that around one out of five elderly people have faced age related discrimination during their
treatment. Studies have also reported that most of the elderly people have a ‘Cognitive hole’
in their awareness and are not aware of the ‘Ageism’ (Voss et al., 2017). Ageism also leads to
the overtreatment of the elderly people and it has been reported that the overtreatment have
cost the United States of America around 158 to 226 billion US dollar (SeniorLiving.org,
2019). In the United States of America, elderly people consume around 36 per cent of total
health care cost and the aforementioned overtreatment cost will increase the burden on the
health care industry (Wyman, Shiovitz-Ezra & Bengel, 2018).
Contributing factors of Age discrimination in healthcare industry: There are many
factors which contribute to this age discrimination in healthcare industry. Most prominent of
them is the belittling attitude of medical professionals towards geriatrics. This negative
attitudes towards geriatrics flows down to the patients while receiving treatment from the
medical professionals. Another contributing factor is people’s general stigma towards old age
(Swift et al., 2017). For example, if an elderly patient complains about pain, the most
common response from the medical professionals is that the reason behind the pain is old age.
They do not even bothered to check properly. Additionally, lack of adequate number
geriatrics specialist also contributes to this factor. Due to high demand, specialists from other

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disciple have to attend them and as reason they are bother to check properly (Sutin et al.,
2015). Along with that, less supply make geriatrics professionals over worked and it is quite
logical that over worked professionals might be a bit aloof or distant.
Proposed solution: To address the issue of age discrimination of elderly people, a mixture of
both short- term and long-term plan has been provided. Short- term plan is needed for
immediate attention to the problem and enhance the situation whereas long- term plan was
proposed for the prevention and awareness of the situation, so that the occurrence of age
discrimination can be reduced. Following Figure 2 shows the short- term and long- term plan
to mitigate age discrimination of elderly people.
Figure 2: Short- term and long- term plan to mitigate age discrimination of elderly people.
Recommended resources to implement the proposed plan: The long- term plan can be
implemented by using the hospitals own fund. Hospitals generally appoint new specialist and
in this they have to hire more geriatrics specialist and more professionally trained geriatrics
workforce. Short- term plan like awareness programs can be funded by collaboration
community or local city hall. The United States of America government provides funding for
awareness programs and this kind of funding can also be achieved.
Short- Term Plan
Provision of training to medical stuff and nurses
on how to communicate and provide care to
elderly people.
Provision on awareness seminar on how to change
our perspective towards elderly peole.
Encourage elder people to participate more on
civic and social activity.
Long- Term Plan
Creation of policy on how the hospital will handle
and tackle the situation of age discrimination
Hire more geriatics to address the increasing
demand
Increment of professionally trained geriatric work
force.

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Provisional timeline for the proposed plan: Short- term plan will be implemented within
the first 4 months whereas long- term plan will require a year to complete. Figure 3A and
Figure 3B depicts the provisional timeline for the proposed plan.
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Plans or Actions Months Months Months Months
Provision of Training
Encouragement to
elderly people
Awareness program
Figure 3A: Provisional time line for short term plan
1st – 3rd 4th – 6th 7th – 9th 10th – 12th
Plans or Actions Months Months Months Months
Hiring geriatrics
Increment of
workforce
Creation of policy
Figure 3B: Provisional time line for long term plan
Importance of the key stakeholders: The key stakeholders for this plans are patients,
doctors, medical staff, and nurses. During the meeting with the stakeholders, the patients
have complained that they have faced with discrimination in the form of negligence,
inattentiveness, and lack of courtesy and the doctors and nurses have reported that they are
over worked and there are very few geriatrics specialist in the hospital.

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The patients, doctors, and nurses are the primary stakeholders of this structure and without
their cooperation nothing would work properly. Doctors and nurses will be trained in the area
of how to properly and effectively communicate with the patients without intentional or
unintentional ageism whereas patients will be informed about the workload and shortage of
staff and will be encouraged to cooperate with the staff.
Implementation and Evaluation of the proposed plan: Awareness program, seminar will
be conducted by the administration of the hospital with a geriatrics specialist in charge of the
committee and the encouragement to the elderly people to participate more in the civic and
social activity will be conducted by medical staff and nurses. Policy regarding the age
discrimination will be created by the respective authority of hospital’s policy makers. Hiring
and increment of workforce will be handled by the hospital’s Talent Acquisition and HR
department.
To evaluate the short-term goal a thorough survey will be conducted after the first four
months to judge and analyse the progress. A committee will be created to evaluate the
achievement of the long- term goal.
Part B: Role as Scientist, Detective, and Manager of the healing environment
Role as a Scientist: To propose the solution for age discrimination among elderly people, a
thorough research have been conducted. Recent peer reviewed journal have been studied to
analyse the current situation of the age discrimination. Various books on management and
leadership have been consulted to propose the solution.
Role as a detective: During the meeting with the primary stakeholders, privacy and secrecy
had to maintain to entice the truth from them. For example, patients were in general fearful to
talk openly as they were afraid that this will reflect on their treatment. Same were true for the

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medical professional but they were fearful of their authority and thus, the role of detective’s
was performed.
Role as a manager: The job of the manager is to manage the difficulties and issues related to
their respective organisation. In this case, the hospital was facing the issue of ageism.
Manager’s role has been performed by creating the plan and solution to mitigate this
particular issue.

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References:
Allen, J. O. (2015). Ageism as a risk factor for chronic disease. The Gerontologist, 56(4),
610-614.
Americangeriatrics.org. (2019). Geriatrics Workforce By the Numbers | American Geriatrics
Society. Retrieved from
https://www.americangeriatrics.org/geriatrics-profession/about-geriatrics/geriatrics-
workforce-numbers
Ivanov, S. V. (2018). Comments on the Paper by VS Myakotnykh “Age-Associated
Pathology and the Place of Geriatrics as a Medical Specialty (Reflections of a
Clinician)”. Advances in Gerontology, 8(3), 194-197.
Nelson, T. D. (2016). Promoting healthy aging by confronting ageism. American
Psychologist, 71(4), 276.
SeniorLiving.org. (2019). How Ageism in Health Care is Affecting Society. Retrieved from
https://www.seniorliving.org/retirement/ageism-healthcare/
Sutin, A. R., Stephan, Y., Carretta, H., & Terracciano, A. (2015). Perceived discrimination
and physical, cognitive, and emotional health in older adulthood. The American
Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 23(2), 171-179.
Swift, H. J., Abrams, D., Lamont, R. A., & Drury, L. (2017). The risks of ageism model:
How ageism and negative attitudes toward age can be a barrier to active aging. Social
Issues and Policy Review, 11(1), 195-231.
Voss, P., Wolff, J. K., Rothermund, K., Schoufour, J. D., Echteld, M. A., & Evenhuis, H. M.
(2017). The paper concentrates on the problem of age discrimination in the labour
market and the way it can be conceptualised and measured in a multi-disciplinary

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way. The approach proposed here combines two understandings of age discrimination
—a sociological and legal one, what allows for a fuller and expanded understanding
of ageism in the workplace. At the heart of the study is a survey carried out
in... European Journal of Ageing, 14(1), 99-100.
Wyman, M. F., Shiovitz-Ezra, S., & Bengel, J. (2018). Ageism in the health care system:
Providers, patients, and systems. In Contemporary perspectives on ageism (pp. 193-
212). Springer, Cham.