Hospitals across the country are introducing specialized emergency rooms for seniors, sometimes called geriatric emergency departments. Hospitals are trying new ways to meet each patient's individual needs to ensure better care. The specialized senior emergency rooms have certain features and changes in staffing that hospitals hope will help reduce the rate of medical malpractice.
It is expected that there will be an increase in elderly patients as the baby boomer generation ages. A recent survey conducted by the federal government found that, with the exception of infants, seniors aged 75 and older spend more time in ER's than any other age group.
Seniors are often overlooked in busy, chaotic emergency rooms where physicians and nurses are tasked with prioritizing patients and treating them in order of need. For the majority of seniors in emergency rooms, their concerns are usually the result of chronic diseases and are not extremely time-sensitive, meaning other, more urgent cases will be cared for first.
The senior emergency department staff at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor is specially trained in sensory appreciation, ageism and communicating with seniors to better cater to their specific needs.
The first senior emergency department in the U.S. was opened in 2008 at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD. There is a social worker on staff full-time at the Holy Cross department, which is unusual for an emergency room. The social worker is there to make patients feel at-ease and to find potential hazards in seniors' homes that may be contributing to their health problems.
The new senior emergency department at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor in Michigan provides an example of the changes hospitals across the country may be making. There are handrails along every wall, non-skid flooring, and walkers in every room to reduce the risk of falling. Mattresses are thicker, lighting is softer, clocks are larger and reading glasses and hearing devices are available to make seniors' hospital stay as comfortable as possible. The beds also have an optional alarm system that can be set to sound if a wandering patient gets out of bed.
For many senior departments, cognitive screening is part of the standard initial assessment. Staff searches for warning signs of conditions like dementia, depression and early Alzheimer's that may have been missed in other ER's.
