The hidden patient: addressing the caregiver.

Premium caregiving is pivotal to achieve quality care for persons with chronic or disabling conditions. Unpaid informal caregivers currently provide for a substantial proportion of care recipient needs including 80% of long-term care needs in the United States. Within the next 2 decades, 78 million baby boomers will reach 65 years of age and older, creating unique and extensive challenges to an already flawed health care system; this older cohort will at minimum increase utilization of health care resources. On an individual level, care providers need to support and educate caregivers and make caregivers partners in the delivery of excellent care. To achieve this, health care professionals need to educate themselves regarding the caregivers' demographics, ethnicity, characteristics, effective interventions, and outcomes. From a health policy perspective, public, private, and community funding needs to be allocated to advocate for, encourage, and train these caregivers.