Modern Healthcare: Catering to the Elderly in the ED

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Modern Healthcare has published an article, "Catering to the Elderly in the ED," about the new American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) geriatric emergency department (ED) accreditation program.

St. Joseph's University Medical Center was one of the first hospitals in the country to be accredited in the ACEP program.

"The accreditation program provides a level of standardization across geriatric EDs that has been lacking, said Dr. Kevin Biese, chair of the ACEP program and co-director of geriatric emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine."

"Hospitals must follow specific guidelines to receive accreditation. An ED can receive one of three levels of accreditation from the ACEP....The ACEP conducts on-site visits before designating Level 1 EDs. It also requires Level 1 EDs to report and track at least five outcome measures that track things such as the number of older adults with repeat visits and the number of patients who stay longer than eight hours."

"Dr. Mark Rosenberg said the geriatric ED has reduced inpatient admissions at St. Joseph's. About 34% of geriatric patients are admitted to the hospital from the ED, down from 54% when it opened."


To read the article, click here.
To learn more about the ACEP accreditation program, click here.
To read about The John A. Hartford Foundation co-funding with West Health Institute, click here.