Emergency Medicine Commons^™

Impact Of A Novel Multi-Specialist Telemedicine Consultation Program Model Of Care For Homebound Older Adults, Samir K. Sinha Dr, Kristina Marie Kokorelias, Nicoda Foster, Pauline Kabitsis, Alfiya Mukharyamova, Mary Ann Hamelin, Nga Truong, Anna Grosse Dr, Janny Lee

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

BACKGROUND: In 2015, a centralised Multi-Specialist Telemedicine (TM) Consultation Program was established to improve access to specialist care and enhance continuity of care for homebound older adults in Toronto, Canada. Community-dwelling patients were referred to the program by their primary care providers (PCP), treating specialists, and inpatient physicians for specialist-led post hospital discharge follow-up care. A clinical nurse specialist (CNS) thereafter collaborated with hospital-based consulting specialists, utilizing videoconferencing technology to facilitate consultations and follow-up visits for homebound patients

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational study of the overall intervention including patient characteristics and the number/type of consultations provided by analyzing …

The Missed And The Misdiagnosed: Geriatric Delirium In The Emergency Department, Christienne Shams, Yashar Eshman, Ronan Factora, Stephen Meldon, Saket Saxena

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Background: Older patients with delirium are at increased risk for prolonged hospitalization, poor outcomes, higher costs and a greater risk for institutionalization. By identifying those at risk early, interventions can be implemented to prevent or minimize the severity of the delirium. Per hospital policy, our geriatric emergency department (ED) screens for delirium by performing a 4AT only if changes in mental status are noted by caregivers or healthcare providers familiar with the patient. We hypothesize this approach underestimates the prevalence of delirium on presentation to the ED, particularly among high-risk older patients. The aim of this study is to determine …

Dynamics Of Anti-Influenza Mucosal Iga Over A Season In A Cohort Of Individuals Living Or Working In A Long-Term Care Facility, Matt D T Hitchings, Brooke A Borgert, Adam Shir, Bingyi Yang, Kyra H Grantz, Jacob Ball, Carlos A Moreno, Kenneth Rand, Parker A Small, Keith R Fowke, Derek A T Cummings

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Serological surveys are used to ascertain influenza infection and immunity, but evidence for the utility of mucosal immunoglobulin A (IgA) as a correlate of infection or protection is limited.

METHODS: We performed influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance on 220 individuals living or working in a retirement community in Gainesville, Florida from January to May 2018, and took pre- and postseason nasal samples of 11 individuals with polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed influenza infection and 60 randomly selected controls. Mucosal IgA against 10 strains of influenza was measured from nasal samples.

RESULTS: Overall, 28.2% and 11.3% of individuals experienced a 2-fold and …

Effectiveness Of An Emergency Department-Based Machine Learning Clinical Decision Support Tool To Prevent Outpatient Falls Among Older Adults: Protocol For A Quasi-Experimental Study, Daniel J Hekman, Amy L Cochran, Apoorva P Maru, Hanna J Barton, Manish N Shah, Douglas Wiegmann, Maureen A Smith, Frank Liao, Brian W Patterson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background

Emergency department (ED) providers are important collaborators in preventing falls for older adults because they are often the first health care providers to see a patient after a fall and because at-home falls are often preceded by previous ED visits. Previous work has shown that ED referrals to falls interventions can reduce the risk of an at-home fall by 38%. Screening patients at risk for a fall can be time-consuming and difficult to implement in the ED setting. Machine learning (ML) and clinical decision support (CDS) offer the potential of automating the screening process. However, it remains unclear whether …

Satisfaction Of Older Patients With Emergency Department Care: Psychometric Properties And Construct Validity Of The Consumer Emergency Care Satisfaction Scale, Peter L T Hoonakker, Pascale Carayon, Roger L Brown, Rebecca Schwei, Rebecca K Green, Mackenzie Rabas, Ly Hoang, Kathryn L Wust, Rachel Rutkowski, Megan E Salwei, Hanna J Barton, Manish N Shah, Michael S Pulia, Brian W Patterson, Paula V W Dail, Sheryl Krause, Denise Buckley, Jennifer Hankwitz, Nicole E Werner

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of quality of care, but its measurement remains challenging. The Consumer Emergency Care Satisfaction Scale (CECSS) was developed to measure patient satisfaction in the emergency department (ED). Although this is a valid and reliable tool, several aspects of the CECSS need to be improved, including the definition, dimension, and scoring of scales.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of the CECSS and make suggestions on how to improve the tool to measure overall satisfaction with ED care.

METHODS: We administered 2 surveys to older adults who presented …

Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Journal Club: Screening For High-Risk Alcohol Use Among Older Adults In The Emergency Department, Kira Gossack-Keenan

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Alcohol use in older adults is a growing and under-recognized issue. Older adults are at higher risk of alcohol-related complications due to underlying comorbidities, frailty, and polypharmacy. High-risk alcohol use and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are often missed among older patients. We present two recent studies on screening older patients for alcohol use. Older adults have unique needs and require a specialized approach to screening.

Patient Experience After Geriatric Emergency Medicine Assessment, Jessica Kuxhause, Natalie Liogas, Sarah Keene, Rebecca Fisher, Lauren Cameron Comasco

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Study Objectives

The geriatric population is increasing in size and expected to represent 20% of the United States population by 2030 per US census data estimates, with expectant increase in geriatric emergency department (ED) visits.¹ Prior research has demonstrated older adults evaluated in the ED are more likely to have an increased length of stay, more diagnostic tests, and higher overall costs than their younger counterparts, but despite consuming greater resources and staff time, older adults are still more likely to be dissatisfied with their treatment outcomes and less likely to feel that their presenting complaint has been resolved. …

Shared Disposition Decision Making In The Emergency Department For Persons Living With Dementia, Justine Seidenfeld, Fernanda Bellolio, Anita Vashi, Courtney Van Houtven, Susan Hastings

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

N/A

Current Best Practice In Pelvic And Hip Fracture Management In The Older Adult Population, Anthony P. Joseph

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Fractures of the pelvis and hip are a relatively frequent occurrence in the older population. Pelvic fractures in older patients usually occur after a fall from standing height. CT scan is the investigation of choice. There are several classifications available which are useful in risk stratification and predicting surgical treatment. Haemorrhage is a major complication and can usually be treated by interventional radiology. An Orthopedic opinion should be sought promptly, and surgical stabilisation (if indicated) should be completed as early as possible to enable early mobilisation and the avoidance of complications such as deep vein thrombosis or pneumonia.

Hip fractures …

Top 10 Things To Know About Falls In Older Adults, Alexander W. Zirulnik, Shan Liu

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

No abstract provided.

Geriatric Trauma Triage - The Scope Of The Problem, Mya Cubitt, Rachel Key

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

n/a

End-Of-Life Care In The Trauma Bay: Six Key Points, Louis Christie Dr

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

The dominant culture across North America, Europe and Australia has been characterized by workers in hospice and palliative care as ‘death denying’ or ‘death phobic’. The last two decades have seen a significant increase in the number of trauma patients with complex background co-morbidities due to advanced age. Effective end-of-life care in trauma requires physicians to begin careful, balanced and sensitive conversations encompassing goals of care and expectation-setting, in the trauma bay. These pointers will help the reader communicate the principles of these clinical decisions clearly to patients and their families.

Head Injury In Older Adults: To Scan Or Not To Scan? Ten Tips To Make The Best Decision, Audrey-Anne Brousseau, Éric Mercier

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Ground-level falls are a leading cause of emergency department (ED) visits by older adults. In addition to understanding the cause of the fall, the assessment of potential fall-induced injuries such as traumatic intracranial hemorrhage, can be highly challenging for emergency clinicians. Premorbid conditions, medications and concomitant injuries can all interfere with the physical examination and impact the prevalence of signs traditionally associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). When it comes to the decision to potentially investigate for a traumatic intracranial hemorrhage with a brain imaging such as a head computed tomography (CT), many potential predictors and factors will be considered. …

Older Person Fracture Presentation And Management Including Tips For Pain Management, Timothy D W Arnold

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Fractures in older adults occur in patients who commonly carry chronic, complex multi-system disease. Nuanced management for these injuries is required in this patient group to reduce mortality, morbidity and improve outcomes.

Differential Effects Of An Ed-To-Home Care Transitions Intervention In An Older Adult Population: A Latent Class Analysis, Rebecca K Green, Kenneth J Nieser, Gwen C Jacobsohn, Amy L Cochran, Thomas V Caprio, Jeremy T Cushman, Amy J H Kind, Michael Lohmeier, Manish N Shah

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Older adults frequently return to the emergency department (ED) within 30 days of a visit. High-risk patients can differentially benefit from transitional care interventions. Latent class analysis (LCA) is a model-based method used to segment the population and test intervention effects by subgroup.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to identify latent classes within an older adult population from a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of an ED-to-home transitional care program and test whether class membership modified the intervention effect.

RESEARCH DESIGN: Participants were randomized to receive the Care Transitions Intervention or usual care. Study staff collected outcomes data through medical …

Sigmoid Perforation Extending Into The Abdominal Wall, Zamran Masih, Wayne Tamaska, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Sigmoid colon perforation and spread into the abdominal wall is a rare condition that can occur due to various causes such as diverticulitis, trauma, malignancy, or iatrogenic injury during surgery. Although rare, sigmoid colon perforation into the abdominal wall can result in significant morbidity and mortality if not promptly diagnosed and treated. Most common cause of diverticular disease leading to perforation is diverticulitis, accounting for 60% of all colonic perforations.

Abc's Of Geriatric Trauma, Teresita Hogan

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

The ABC's approach to geriatric trauma alerts clinicians to specific important factors in emergency evaluation of an injured older adult.

Leveraging The Electronic Health Record To Implement Emergency Department Delirium Screening, Anita N Chary, Elise Brickhouse, Beatrice Torres, Ilianna Santangelo, Christopher R Carpenter, Shan W Liu, Kyler M Godwin, Aanand D Naik, Hardeep Singh, Maura Kennedy

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to understand how emergency departments (EDs) use health information technology (HIT), and specifically the electronic health record (EHR), to support implementation of delirium screening.

METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 ED clinician-administrators, representing 20 EDs, about how they used HIT resources to implement delirium screening. Interviews focused on challenges participants experienced when implementing ED delirium screening and EHR-based strategies they used to overcome them. We coded interview transcripts using dimensions from the Singh and Sittig sociotechnical model, which addresses use of HIT in complex adaptive health care systems. Subsequently, we analyzed data …

An Inflection Point To Improve Emergency Care For Older Adults, Jonny Macias Tejada, Michael Malone, Kevin Biese

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Not applicable.

The History Of Geriatric Emergency Medicine, Teresita M. Hogan Md, Lowell Gerson Phd, Aurthur B. Sanders Md

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Abstract: Excellent emergency care does not happen by chance. The standard emergency approach that excels in the young, fails in older patients. Older adults experience unnecessary morbidity and excess mortality in our emergency departments. This article describes the pursuit of excellent emergency care in the historically challenging older adult population. A pivotal point occurred once emergency physicians recognized older patients as a distinct population in need of unique evaluation and treatment.

In the early 1990s a group of geriatricians, philanthropists, and emergency physicians joined forces to improve older patient care. Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) emerged as a subspecialty as these …

Geriatric Depression Screening And Chief Complaint: What Is The Risk For 30- And 90-Day Readmission?, Eric James, Joan Michelle Moccia, Victoria Lucia

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Abstract

Background:

Readmission to the hospital within 30-days has a high cost and represents a gap in care for older adults. Older adults are at significant risk for depression, particularly given their medical comorbidities and social factors such as isolation due to SARS-CoV-2. Many patients who screen positive for depression may have no known history of depression. This investigation examines the relationship between a positive geriatric depression screen and chief complaint as a function of 30- and 90-day readmission risk.

Methods:

We examined the electronic medical record of 329 older adults aged 65 and older from February 1, 2020, to …

Indication Of Mobility Aids And Training Of Older Patients In A Geriatric Emergency Department: Abiding By International Guidelines, Mario C. De Andrade Junior, Christian V. Morinaga, Christina M M Brito, Igor G. Moraes, Wellington P. Yamaguti, Pedro K. Curiati

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Falls are the main cause of injuries, hospitalization, and loss of functionality among adults over 65 years of age. Thus, proper indication of assistive gait devices should be part of multidimensional fall prevention. However, many patients receive little or no professional assistance when selecting a mobility aid, and inadequate selection and use can result in a poor gait pattern.

All patients admitted to our emergency department (ED) undergo a medical evaluation, in which, based on their clinical condition, the protocol for indication and training in the use of walking aids can be triggered. Patients need to be clinically stable and …

Patterns Of Care Partner Communication For Persons Living With Dementia In The Emergency Department, Adrian D. Haimovich, Aidan Gilson, Evangeline Gao, Ling Chi, Cameron J. Gettel, Mara Schonberg, Ula Hwang, Richard A. Taylor

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Abstract

Background:

Nearly half of all persons living with dementia (PLwD) will visit the emergency department (ED) in any given year and ED visits by PLwD are associated with short-term adverse outcomes. Care partner engagement is critical in the care of PLwD, but little is known about their patterns of communication with ED clinicians.

Methods:

We performed a retrospective electronic health record (EHR) review of a random sampling of patients ≥ 65 years with a historical diagnosis code of dementia who visited an ED within a large

regional health network between 1/2014 and 1/2022. ED notes within the EHRs were …

Geriatric Emergency Departments As Laboratories For Innovation, Brian W. Patterson, Manish N. Shah

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

n/a for editorial

Examination Of Geriatric Care Processes Implemented In Level 1 And Level 2 Geriatric Emergency Departments, Ilianna Santangelo, Surriya Ahmad, Shan Liu, Lauren Southerland, Christopher Carpenter, Ula Hwang, Adriane Lesser, Nicole Tidwell, Kevin Biese, Maura Kennedy

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Background: Older adults constitute a large and growing proportion of the population and have unique care needs in the emergency department (ED) setting. The geriatric ED accreditation program aims to improve emergency care provided to older adults by standardizing care provided across accredited geriatric EDs (GED) and through implementation of geriatric-specific care processes.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate select care processes at accredited level 1 and level 2 GEDs.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of a cohort of level 1 and level 2 GEDs that received accreditation between May 7, 2018 and …

Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship Journal Club: Syncope Risk Stratification & Geriatric-Specific Clinical Decision Rules, Kyle R. Burton Md Mpp, Phillip Magidson

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

No abstract provided.

Relationship Of Abdominal Circumference And Trunk Length With Spinal Anesthesia Block Height In Geriatric Patients Undergoing Transurethral Resection Of Prostate, Muhammad Yahya, Aliya Ahmed, Iayla Fatima, Muhammad Nasir

Department of Anaesthesia

Introduction: Spinal anesthesia is commonly used for various surgical procedures. Prediction of spinal anesthesia block height is always a challenging task for anesthetists. Higher than desired levels of spinal anesthesia blocks are associated with serious side effects, while inadequate block height does not provide satisfactory surgical anesthesia. In this study, we observed the relationship between the ratio of trunk length (TL) and square of the abdominal circumference (AC²) and spinal anesthesia sensory block height in geriatric patients undergoing transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP).
Material & Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted at the Aga Khan University …

Dead End: Challenges In Healthcare Delivery To Older Adults With History Of Dementia And Incarceration- A Case Report, Shruti Anand, Saket Saxena

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

No abstract provided.

Multimethod Process Evaluation Of A Community Paramedic Delivered Care Transitions Intervention For Older Emergency Department Patients, Gwen Costa Jacobsohn, Apoorva P Maru, Rebecca K Green, Angela N Gifford, Matthew D Lukasik, Tikiri Bandara, Thomas V Caprio, Amy L Cochran, Jeremy T Cushman, Courtney M C Jones, Amy J H Kind, Michael Lohmeier, Manish N Shah

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: We assessed fidelity of delivery and participant engagement in the implementation of a community paramedic coach-led Care Transitions Intervention (CTI) program adapted for use following emergency department (ED) visits.

METHODS: The adapted CTI for ED-to-home transitions was implemented at three university-affiliated hospitals in two cities from 2016 to 2019. Participants were aged ≥60 years old and discharged from the ED within 24 hours of arrival. In the current analysis, participants had to have received the CTI. Community paramedic coaches collected data on program delivery and participant characteristics at each transition contact via inventories and assessments. Participants provided commentary on …

The Geriatric Emergency Department At The University Of California San Francisco: Structures, Roles, And Lessons Learned, Todd James

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

No abstract provided.