Health Affairs Paper: Age-Friendly Care At The Emergency Department
Health Affairs has published an article, "Age-Friendly Care At The Emergency Department."
The Entrypoint piece uses the example of the geriatric emergency department (ED) at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City to talk about age-friendly changes that EDs, hospitals and health systems across the country are making to improve care for older adults.
Geriatric emergency departments (GEDs) are described along with several parallel initiatives underway by organizations such as the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) who began accrediting GEDs in 2018, with support from JAHF and West Health. "GEDs use a team approach that looks beyond the emergent condition, such as pain or shortness of breath, to find the care that meets the patient’s personal goals and broader medical needs."
The article talks about many successful geriatric models of hospital care for older adults, including several at Mount Sinai such as Hospital at Home (HaH), described as "part of the continuum of age-friendly services in the ED."
"But the greater goal is to spark a transformation to a better framework for handling the health care of an aging population. In 2016 The John A. Hartford Foundation, a major funder of geriatric initiatives, partnered with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to turn the alphabet soup of [model] acronyms into a simple but powerful movement via the Age-Friendly Health Systems."
To go to the abstract, click here.
To learn more about the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, click here.
To learn more about ACEP's accreditation program, click here.
To learn more about Mount Sinai's GEDs, click here.
To learn more about Hospital at Home, click here.
To learn more about JAHF's support of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, click here.