The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) In 1998, there were about 3.57 million Californians age 65 and older, a 15 percent increase since 1990. This number will at least increase to five million in 2010 and grow to seven million by 2020, with those persons over age 85 representing the fastest growing segment of the population.
(b) By 2020, the numbers of Hispanic, African American, and other minority older persons will more than quadruple to an estimated total of at least 2.8 million.
(c) The age group over 75 has the highest rate of health care utilization of all groups.
(d) The higher prevalence of chronic conditions in those age 65 and older results in greater use of physician services. On average, they visit a physician nine times a year compared to five visits by the general population. They are hospitalized over three times as often as the younger population, stay 50 percent longer, and use twice as many prescription drugs.
(e) The knowledge and skill base in geriatrics, which is essential to the provision of medical care to older patients, has not been adequately integrated into the training of today’s doctors and other health care professionals.
(f) If resources are not invested now for better training in geriatrics, there will be an inadequate supply of doctors properly trained to treat older patients by 2010.
(g) The Academic Geriatric Resource Program was established in 1984 as a mechanism for developing within the University of California new educational initiatives in geriatrics, gerontology, and other disciplines relating to aging. The program originally was funded at one million dollars ($1,000,000). Funding has not kept pace with inflation or need. The program in 1999 was funded at one million one hundred thousand dollars ($1,100,000).
(h) The Association of American Medical Colleges acknowledged the problem of inadequate medical education in geriatrics in December 1999 by launching a new program to enhance the gerontology and geriatric curricula at United States medical schools. The association recognized that geriatrics should “be represented in a more coherent and comprehensive manner in the curricula of all U.S. medical schools.”
(Repealed and added by Stats. 2000, Ch. 440, Sec. 8. Effective January 1, 2001.)