By Jamie DavisHypothetical situation: You are the caregiver for your
mother and your grandfather. You live in New Orleans, your mother lives in
Shreveport and your grandfather lives in Lake Charles. Your mother calls you at
7 a.m. and complains of dizziness and nausea, perhaps caused by an adverse
reaction between medications prescribed by her cardiologist and primary care
physician. While you’re on hold with her physician and waiting for a call back
from her cardiologist, your grandfather calls with concerns about chest pains
he’s had throughout the night. Meanwhile, you have a sick two-year-old, an
important meeting at work and no remaining vacation and sick days.
Welcome to the ‘Sandwich Generation.’
Formerly known as Generation X, the more than 66 million
Americans who make up the Sandwich Generation are caring not only for themselves
and their children, but also their parents and in some cases, their
grandparents…and all while balancing careers and other obligations and
responsibilities. And statistically, more than one-third of them are playing
the role of caregiver from a distance, which makes the job even harder -
particularly when it comes to managing health and health care for their loved
ones. Imagine trying to keep an up-to-date journal of all the medications
Mother must take and when she’s supposed to take them, or attempting to explain
by phone to one doctor that Father has already had that medical test done and
doesn’t need it again, or having to fax a request to one provider to send
Grandma’s lab results to a new specialist…these are just a few of the
day-to-day issues faced by the Sandwich Generation.
But advancements are being made that can help –
specifically, electronic health records (EHRs), patient portals and health
information exchanges (HIEs).
For the caregivers who make up the Sandwich Generation, these
advancements may present solutions to many health care-related issues. EHRs are
designed to be accessible to caregivers through patient portals and can be securely
and confidentially shared among the appropriate health care providers through HIEs.
These technologies may help to ensure that caregivers have access to the most
up-to-date information about their loved ones’ health and provide their loved
ones’ doctors with timely access to the information necessary to provide the
best care possible.
Although those who’ve assumed caregiver roles would hardly
call that responsibility a ‘burden,’ many would quietly admit that it can be
stressful – after all, as human beings, they can only be in so many places at
once and they can only stretch themselves and their schedules so far. But
health IT advancements can help alleviate some of that stress through greater
organization of, and more timely access to, their loved ones’ health
information.
