Nursing Commons^™

Trauma Admission Guidelines For Elderly Isolated Orthopedic Injuries, Jessica Lauren Hamrick-Welchel

Master of Science in Nursing Theses and Projects

A rise in complications at a southeastern level one trauma center had the trauma department and performance improvement personnel looking for a cause and a solution. It was determined through data mining that the patient population that was driving certain complication cohorts above acceptable levels was the injured elderly patient admitted by the non-surgical hospitalist group. Patients admitted by this group commonly sustained a single injury, mostly hip fractures. Elderly patients are admitted by this group in efforts of successfully managing the many co-morbidities these patients typically possess with co-management by the orthopedic group to manage the injury. A meeting …