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.
For more than 50 years, Stratis Health has been a trusted partner and expert in facilitating health improvement for people and communities. The health system’s work is wide-ranging and emphasizes the care and health of older adults and particularly people living in rural places and people experiencing health disparities.
Rural emergency departments face several challenges, including staff turnover and shortages, limited access to specialists, patient transportation, and lengthy boarding times when less-urgent transfers are needed – particularly for patients with complex and/or behavioral health needs.
Together, Stratis Health and GEDC are coming up with new ideas on how to address these challenges and better care for older adults at rural EDs.
GEDC and Stratis Health initially connected as fellow members of the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Age-Friendly Initiative, and the organizations quickly recognized that they have aligned goals and complementary expertise.
“GEDC has amazing resources targeting improving emergency department care for older adults, but their resources were largely developed for a large urban hospital environment,” said Karla Weng, MPH, CPHQ, director of program management for Stratis Health. “Partnering together, we can support targeted efforts to improve emergency care for older adults in rural communities.”
Last September, Stratis Health and GEDC co-hosted a listening session focused on rural considerations for GEDs at the NRHA Critical Access Hospital Conference. Through that discussion, the team recognized that many of the existing GEDC efforts are relevant and impactful, but need refinement to ensure applicability in rural settings.
For example, in reviewing the GED Accreditation criteria, rural hospitals have expressed difficulty meeting coverage requirements and staffing with a board-certified ED physician, which is not a specialist typically available in a rural hospital.
“A one-size-fits-all accreditation approach doesn’t work, so we’re working to help ensure rural relevance of the GED accreditation criteria since they offer an important framework for improving care, given the disproportionately older population in rural communities,” Weng said. “We’re also planning to develop sample documents and tools that are structured to align with the realities of the resources and services available in small rural hospitals, where the staffing and structure are quite different than in large urban centers.
“Rural hospitals are often hubs of innovation and creativity – and we’re also gathering information about rural strategies that will be effective in implementing and sustaining new practices for the care of older adults.”
The GEDC/Stratis Health listening session helped clarify some of the rural challenges and identify rural-relevant solutions related to technology, telehealth, care coordination approaches, and opportunities to incorporate workflow and low-tech solutions that have meaningful impact.
The conversation continued with a podcast released by Stratis Health on National Rural Health Day that highlights the amazing work done by the first Level 3 GEDA-accredited critical access hospital in the country. Stratis Health President and CEO Jennifer Lundblad, Kristie Foster, RN, BSN, director of the Emergency Department and Urgent Care at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, and GEDC Co-Principal Investigator Kevin Biese joined the podcast conversation about how rural EDs can improve care for their older adult patients while contributing to building a fair, just and equitable healthcare system.
With so much interest in targeted support and assistance to help improve geriatric ED care in rural hospitals, GEDC and Stratis Health are currently seeking funding and partners to establish a collaborative model that empowers small cohorts of rural and critical access hospitals to implement rural-relevant best practices in geriatric emergency care.
“We aim to work closely with rural hospitals in reimagining care models that align clinical and community-based resources while improving outcomes for rural older adults and through that process,” Weng said, “(as well as) develop replicable models, tools and best practices that will support broader implementation of GED principles in small rural hospitals.”