Baby Boomers have spent their lives challenging the status quo. They reshaped our workplaces, families, culture and expectations for how we live. Now, as this generation ages, we face a question we have spent far less time considering: Have we built a system that allows people to grow older the way they actually want to?<\/p>\n
The answer, too often, is no.<\/p>\n
America is undergoing a profound demographic shift, and Santa Clara County is no exception<\/a>. More than 400,000 county residents\u00a0are already over age 60<\/a>, and that number will continue to grow in the years ahead.<\/p>\n But longevity alone should not be the measure of progress. We should also be asking what those additional years of life look like.<\/p>\n For many older adults with complex medical needs, care remains deeply fragmented. They bounce between specialists, primary care providers, hospitals and emergency rooms, with no one connecting the dots. When the system falls short, families become the default coordinators<\/a> \u2014 a spouse managing medications and appointments or an adult child balancing caregiving with work and their own family.<\/p>\n As people need more help with daily life, their options can narrow dramatically. Too often, the choice becomes struggling to remain independent or moving into institutional care.<\/p>\n For a generation accustomed to choice and determined to age on its own terms, that isn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n We need to rethink aging around a different goal: helping people maintain independence, connection and purpose for as long as possible.<\/p>\n That means moving beyond a healthcare system organized primarily around individual appointments and episodes of illness. Medical care matters enormously, but so do transportation, nutrition, mobility, social connection, behavioral health, rehabilitation and support for family caregivers. Treating those needs separately ignores how people actually experience aging.<\/p>\n We know more integrated approaches are possible.<\/p>\n One example is the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly<\/a>, or PACE, which began more than 50 years ago with a simple idea: older adults with complex health and long-term care needs should receive coordinated care in their homes and communities whenever possible. Today, more than 200 PACE programs<\/a> operate across the country, including here in Santa Clara County.<\/p>\n