Emergency Departments Dedicated to Caring for Older Seniors
Associated Health Systems Inc.
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Medicine has always served the individual needs of its patients. It practitioners uphold an oath to assess and treat to the best of their ability, but within the hospitals, there are limiting factors to how they accomplish this task. If an environment isn’t wholly conducive to healing, then it presents a greater challenge for recovery, especially for those dealing with emergency medical issues.
For example, hallway healthcare - gurneys with sick patients lining hospital corridors - represent one of the biggest strains on healthcare providers today. In Ontario, their issue with hallway healthcare has extended beyond their capabilities with more than 400 beds filled to capacity each day by patients who don’t need the level of services the beds are made for. They are often used as a next level ‘waiting room’ until the individual is appropriately placed in long-term care, rehabilitation, or home care and assisted living. A report, titled “Hallway Health Care: A System Under Strain”, details the overburdened system in need of an overhaul. Although the bed issue could be solved by adding more, the fundamental issues are the increase in mental health and addiction problems, a rapidly growing and aging population, and a system that’s complicated to navigate.
Who Is Affected?
Seniors, those near or over the age of 65, are usually the ones on the receiving end of the proverbial short stick with the healthcare system. The rapid triage and diagnosis system isn’t always suitable for older adults because it doesn’t take into full account their unique needs and atypical presentation of injury or disease. In Denver, researchers have discovered that hospital stays for people with Alzheimer’s can be hazardous. The inability to create a safe and conducive environment for treatment has made an “alarming percentage for those patients” who end up dying within one year of their hospital visit. For them, the problem is a condition called “delirium” - a state of extra confusion and agitation brought on by the intensity of hospital stays, especially the busy environment in hospital ERs.
In Denver, researchers have discovered that hospital stays for people with Alzheimer’s can be hazardous.
The additional strain of delirium is so harsh for patients that have neurodegenerative diseases that researchers and independent Alzheimer’s experts agree that caregivers should know the risk before sending a loved one with dementia to a hospital.
Consequently, doctors at Lutheran Medical Center have made changes to assist their senior patients by turning half of their ER into a “Senior ER” and they’re not the only ones looking to make changes in their emergency department.
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The Cure: Senior ERs & Professionals
As a result, emergency care targeted to seniors has started to pop up in different areas. A handful of hospitals are establishing senior emergency centers, or senior ERs/geriatric EDs, due to the demand for specialized approaches to taking care of the elderly. Trinity Health(USA), one of the first hospital systems to establish senior EDs, had created a model for replication by changing the entire outlook of the ER - repainting the walls, replacing the floors, adding handrails, softer lights, thicker mattresses, and heated blankets.
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