Making the Case for a Geriatric Emergency Department
What's Inside
The evidence is clear, and growing: providing geriatric-friendly care in emergency departments improves patient outcomes and experiences, and quality outcomes for hospitals and healthcare systems. Not only that, they reduce healthcare costs.
This toolkit is designed to help you make the case with organization leaders, healthcare systems, colleagues, and community partners. Inside, you will find resources that explain the wide-ranging benefits of geriatric emergency departments including improved patient outcomes, better patient experience, greater staff satisfaction, and reduced healthcare costs.
These resources prepare any clinician for a discussion with key decision makers or c-suite to make a case for geriatric-focused quality improvement processes in their ED.
Faculty
Dr. Kevin Biese serves as an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine (EM) and Internal Medicine, Vice-Chair of Academic Affairs, and Co-Director of the Division of Geriatrics Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine as well as a consultant with West Health. With the support of the John A. Hartford and West Health Foundations, and alongside Dr. Ula Hwang, he serves as Co-PI of the national Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative. He is grateful to chair the first Board of Governors for the ACEP Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation Program. His passion is for improved education and systems of care for older adults, and he has published multiple materials in both these areas.
Aaron Malsch is the Senior Services Program Manager at AdvocateAuroraHealth (AAH) in Wisconsin & Illinois. He supports several geriatric models of care (NICHE, Geri ED, HELP, ACE Tracker, Geriatric Scholars). His focus is on nursing and interprofessional practice as it relates to the elder population throughout the AAH system of clinics, hospitals, emergency departments, home care services, and long term setting partners. In support of these models of care, Aaron has developed expertise in developing EHR workflow tools and reports to facilitate front line staff’s efforts and demonstrate outcomes. He leads the Geriatric ED implementation and achieved ACEP Geri ED accreditation at all AAH EDs. Aaron contributes nationally to the improvement of care for older adults, highlighted by being Chair of the geriatric committee at the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), co-planner of GEDC symposium at the ENA conference, and reviewer of Geriatric ED Accreditation program at ACEP.
Conor is a research associate and medical student working for the GEDC. He is very excited to be part of a collaborative effort endeavoring to find innovative and evidence-based strategies to improve the delivery of healthcare to our nation’s elder population. He looks forward to expanding his skill set and knowledge base as part of the GEDC team.