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Polypharmacy And High-Risk Medications In Older Veterans Presenting For Emergency Care, Paige Morizio, Vinita Mistry, Ashley Mcknight, Marc Pepin, William Bryan, Ryan Owenby, Laura Previll, Luna Ragsdale

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Background: Guidelines suggest screening for polypharmacy and documentation of high-risk medications in the geriatric Emergency Department (ED) setting. The purpose of this quality improvement initiative was to describe high-risk medications and polypharmacy in older Veterans presenting to the ED in order to inform the workflow of a Geriatric ED pharmacist.

Methods: This was a retrospective, quality improvement project that included patients age 65 years or older who presented to the ED between 10/1/2017 and 9/30/2019. The endpoints included the number of patients with at least one high-risk medication and the mean number of medications on the outpatient medication list. The …

Unmet Needs And Social Challenges For Older Adults During And After The Covid-19 Pandemic: An Opportunity To Improve Care, Alyssa Elman, Daniel Baek, Elaine Gottesman, Michael E. Stern, Mary R. Mulcare, Amy Shaw, Morgan Pearman, Michelle Sullivan, Sunday Clark, Timothy F. Platts-Mills, Rahul Sharma, Tony Rosen

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Many older adults have unmet needs and social challenges that can negatively impact their health and well-being, particularly during and after the COVID pandemic. These include social isolation, inadequate care or assistance with their daily activities, food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty, and abuse/neglect/exploitation. An ED visit provides a unique and critical opportunity to identify these issues and initiate intervention for these vulnerable older adults. By assessing for unmet needs and social challenges, considering a team-based approach as to how they may be ameliorated, using online tools, and integrating telehealth and EMS, ED providers have the potential to dramatically improve …