The new age of healthcare: aging Alaska means more healthcare needs and jobs.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Healthcare

The twelve-foot tall bronze statue of an indomitable sourdough pioneer--"Prospector Bill"--graces the front lawn of the Sitka Pioneer Home. Toting a rifle, pick, and coffee pot, gazing confidently onward, Bill symbolizes those early stalwarts who came to Alaska seeking their fortune.

Sometimes fortune smiled and the sourdoughs sailed home heroes. But sometimes fortune didn't smile and once-hopeful miners found themselves stranded in the Great Land, indigent and ailing. The first Alaska Pioneers Home, housed in a dilapidated former Army barracks in Sitka in 1913, was meant to provide a refuge for such men (only men, at first). In 1933, a stately, two-story, Spanish-style concrete building a city block long was erected and still dominates downtown Sitka.

For decades afterwards, many came to Alaska in their prime and worked their careers in the state, always with the plan to enjoy their fortune or retirement in lower-cost Lower 48 places like western Washington or Arizona. That post-career migration, say experts, is no longer the rule.

Those who study demographics say more and more people are staying in Alaska into their senior years. This is especially true of former cheechakos who came to Alaska during construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline or in the years following. In short, aging Baby Boomers are staying in Alaska.

The huge Baby Boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964) has skewed population graphs older nationwide. But in Alaska, the trend is even more noticeable.

"Between 2012 and 2022, Alaska's [proportion] of people sixty-five years or older is going to increase by 79 percent," says Kathy Craft, director of the Alaska Health Workforce Coalition, a group of eleven public and private healthcare entities focused on health and behavioral health workforce planning for the state.

"Around the year 2000, the population of seniors was 7 to 7.5 percent of the population, but it was expected to grow to between 15 and 18 percent," says Dr. Harold Johnston, CEO of the Providence Medical Group in Alaska. "All the seniors were supposed to retire to Sequim [Washington], but they're sticking around."

Johnston is a self-identified boomer who says he's not going anywhere, either.

Aging Patients and Caregivers

The increase in the number of Alaska resident seniors is sure to further stress a health system already stretched by Alaska's sheer size and high costs.

"Alaska suffers from a shortage of healthcare professionals," says Ann Secrest of...