White Paper—Geriatric Emergency Medicine Education: Current State, Challenges, and Recommendations to Enhance the Emergency Care of Older Adults
Contributing GEDC Faculty
Dr. Teresita Hogan is a Professor of Medicine and Director of Geriatric Emergency Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. Her clinical research interest are Geriatric EM, Quality Improvement, Emergency Pain Management, Emergency Management of Falls in Older Adults, and Models of Care. Dr. Hogan is the ACEP representative to the AGS and serves on the executive committee Section for Enhancing Geriatric Understanding and Expertise among Surgical and Medical Specialists. She is an expert in graduate medical education and led the expert consensus process to establish The Geriatric Competencies for Emergency Medicine Residents.
She has also worked on identifying the number and characteristics of geriatric emergency departments across the United States and is a member of the GEDA Board of Governors.
Abstract
The traditional model of emergency care no longer fits the growing needs of the over 20 million older adults annually seeking emergency department care. In 2007 a tailored “geriatric emergency department” model was introduced and rapidly replicated among hospitals, rising steeply over the past 5 years. This survey examined all U.S. emergency departments self-identifying themselves as Geriatric Emergency Departments (GEDs) and providing enhanced geriatric emergency care services. It was guided by the recently adopted Geriatric Emergency Department Guidelines and examined domains including, GED identity, staffing, and administration; education, equipment, and supplies; policies, procedures, and protocols; follow-up and transitions of care; and quality improvement. Results reveal a heterogeneous mix of GED staffing, procedures, physical environments and that GEDs’ familiarity with the GED Guidelines is low. Findings will inform emergency departments and gerontologists nationwide about key GED model elements and will help hospitals to improve ED services for their older adult patients.
Full Article at PubMed