The Sandwich Generation

One of the things that I am surprised that we don’t hear more about is the sandwich generation.  These are people who are caring both for children along with their older parents.  According to Pew, 1 in every 8 people aged 40 to 60 fit into this category.

There are obvious implications in terms of managing health.

1. Information challenges for these caregivers that have to manage information on their health, their kid’s health, and their parent’s health.
2. Challenges in acting and coordinating this caregiver role while managing typical stresses of work, financial planning, and other things.

And, all of this puts a new requirement on health plans and health entities.  How do you engage the caregiver?  How do you track approval to send information to the caregiver instead of the patient? 

What about when the caregiver is remote and there is a surrogate?  How are decisions delegated?  How do you create information and send it to multiple parties?  Should the information be personalized to the individual knowing that perhaps my parents need certain information which I might need presented to me differently? 

Other resources on this topic include:

• http://www.sandwichgeneration.com/
• Money list of resources
• Caregiver.com article