May 14, 2008
Institute of Medicine
500 Fifth Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
Dear Interested Parties:
The purposes of this letter are to: 1) commend the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the recently released report on the health and long term care workforce entitled “Retooling Health Care Workforce for Aging Americans,” and 2) offer comments from the direct care worker (DCW) perspective.
Many of us have been working on health and long term care workforce issues for a number of years and your efforts certainly bring credibility to the urgent and critical nature of these complex issues.
The Iowa CareGivers Association (ICA) was founded in 1992 as an independent nonprofit association with its sole focus on bringing stability to the direct care workforce by providing education, recognition, advocacy, and research in their support. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that we are very pleased to see an entire section within the report devoted to the direct care workforce.
