GEDC’s mission is made possible through collaboration with like-minded organizations. In our new Collaborator Spotlight Series, we’re highlighting the work that our partner organizations are doing to improve emergency department care for older adults.
Since its beginning in 1970, the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) has supported emergency nurses in providing the highest quality of care. Boasting nearly 45,000 members, the organization advances excellence in emergency nursing through research, education, resources, advocacy and collaboration.
“We are very committed to improving the profession and helping emergency nurses provide the highest quality of care,” said 2025 ENA President Ryan Oglesby, PhD, MHA, RN, CEN, CFRN, NEA-BC.
ENA has long focused on improving the quality of care for geriatric patients in the emergency department. The organization provides a wealth of resources and education around the topic, including toolkits and clinical practice guidelines to help nurses advocate for older adult patients.
“I really think [geriatric emergency medicine] has been a priority for us since we began over 50 years ago,” Oglesby said. “As emergency nursing professionals, one of the great opportunities we have is taking care of patients throughout their lifespan. We have to be ready to jump in from newborns to pediatrics, all the way to geriatrics.”
ENA’s geriatric clinical practice guidelines include components such as a fall risk assessment tool, a screening for cognitively impaired older adults and a toolkit to help emergency nurses set up important screens for older adult patients in their EDs.
The organization’s primary educational offering in this area is its Geriatric Emergency Nursing Education (GENE) course, which launched in 2004. Since then, the course has expanded from its original version to three additional independent courses focusing on high-risk patients, advanced practitioners and veterans. In addition, ENA provides member-led resources and educational events at its annual conferences, and many of those courses include geriatric components.
ENA’s robust research department has undertaken several research initiatives related to the older adult population, covering topics such as ED readiness for geriatric patients, specific quality indicators and guidelines for geriatric emergency departments.
“Through the research department, we’ve focused on the specific needs of the geriatric population, whether that be related to triage, cognitive health or how we need to transition older adults back to the community,” Oglesby said.
ENA has partnered with GEDC since 2016, when GEDC approached the organization to collaborate in creating resources. In 2017, GEDC presented at its first of many ENA conferences, leading courses tailored to the care of older adult patients. GEDC also assisted ENA in revising its geriatric emergency department guidelines in 2023 to ensure that the guidelines reflect current best practices.
“It’s helpful to have like minded organizations who strive to offer the highest quality of care, and that’s certainly what we want for our patients,” Oglesby said. “We realize – and GEDC does, too – that we can’t do this in a vacuum. We can’t improve healthcare and maximize everyone’s outcomes in our own silos. Having this multidisciplinary approach to the way we care for patients really helps us deliver those optimal patient outcomes.”
For ENA, providing the highest quality of care for all emergency department patients remains the top priority, and partnerships help the organization continue to do so.
“We can always do better and achieve our mission in that way, because anything we can do to help emergency nurses provide that level of care is something we want to be a part of,” Oglesby said.
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