hospitalization from the emergency department

Complications

• older patients spending the night in the emergency department waiting for admission to a hospital ward are increased risk of morbidity & mortality
• there are many more competing demands for ED staff than there are minutes during an ED encounter, with little enthusiasm from providers for adding additional tasks such as geriatric screening added to the ED workflow

Management

• geriatric emergency department guidelines recommend screening for
  • delirium
  • cognitive impairment/dementia
  • fall risk
  • elder abuse
  • home safety &/or need for transition of care
  • palliative care needs
  • vision impairment &/or hearing impairment
• suggestion is made to automate the screening process through the EMR to identify a subset of patients who would benefit from direct human screening
• an automated EMR screening criteria for use in the emergency department
  • age >= 80 years
  • chief complaint of fall or mobility impairment
  • history of dementia (documented in EMR)
  • >= 5 emergency department visits in last year
  • >= 10 home medications
  • delirium (4AT score >=4)

More general terms

• hospitalization

Additional terms

• Emergency Department (ED, emergency room, ER)
• transition of care; health care transition