Key Insights:

• Survey reveals wide-ranging dissatisfaction with health care and related services that don’t reflect how people want to live as they age.
• America’s 65+ population is skyrocketing as opportunities go unmet to provide better care and tailored services to enhance a person’s ‘healthspan’ versus ‘lifespan’.
• Challenges are worse for underserved communities, with dissatisfaction higher among rural residents, women and people of color.
• The movement to create age-friendly health systems can fill gaps nationwide to provide focused, high-quality care centered on the needs and preferences of older adults.
• Innovative solutions and new tech breakthroughs are beginning to emerge from both the non-profit and for-profit sectors.

• Promote age-friendly care
• Pursue scientific breakthroughs
• Address social isolation

• Assist family caregivers
• Support a ‘national master plan for aging’

Promote age-friendly care:

• Older adults can learn how to ask for and receive age-friendly care

• Health systems and clinicians can join the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement

Assist family caregivers:

• Dementia caregivers can use Best Programs for Caregiving to find support

• States, employers, funders and others can use resource guides to support caregivers

Support state and national plans for aging:

• Advocate for your state to develop a Multisector Plan on Aging

• Contribute to a National Plan on Aging currently in development

When asked to grade specific aspects of the health care system, out-of-pocket costs were rated the worst, with only 16% of older adults giving them an “A.”

Compared to other older adults, those with 3+ functional health limitations give lower grades to providers, quality of care, institutions, choice and control, and out-of-pocket costs.

Only 19% of older adults surveyed say their health care provider routinely covers all the essentials of age-friendly care, represented by the 4Ms: what matters, medication, mentation and mobility.

Compared to other older adults, those who receive age-friendly care give higher grades to their providers (59% vs 36%), and they report higher rates of excellent/very good health (41% to 32%).

Age-friendly: Safe, evidence-based health care focused on what matters to older adults. Strategy: Make basic geriatrics training and methods standard for all health care providers, using the 4Ms Framework.

Proactive: Aimed at maintaining health, function, and independence. Strategy: Redouble efforts at early detection and prevention of diseases, with the goal of increasing healthspans.

Person-centered: Empathetic and respectful care tailored to individual needs, preferences, and goals. Strategy: Scale up health-at-home, age-in-place and other programs to increase access to personalized care and functional support.

Comprehensive and Integrated: Incorporating all facets of health (including physical, mental, and cognitive) and coordinating care across providers. Strategy: Develop better AI-enabled navigation services that simplify access to care and enable older adults to better understand and manage their care.

Equitable: Removing social and financial biases and barriers that lead to current health and care-related inequities. Strategy: Lower costs to health care consumers, especially the costs of prescription drugs and long-term care, and screen for social determinants of health, such as social isolation.

Only 23% of older adults with lower financial resources rate their physical health as excellent/very good, compared with 54% of older adults with higher financial resources.

30% of rural older adults rate their physical health as excellent/very good, compared to 38% of urban/suburban older adults.

44% of Black older adults reported wanting their health care providers to spend more time discussing what matters to their health and well-being, compared to 32% of all older adults.

37% of Hispanic older adults reported wanting their health care providers to spend more time discussing what matters to their health and well-being, compared to 32% of all older adults.