The following is a summary of “An Outcome Comparison Between Geriatric and Nongeriatric Emergency Departments,” published in the December 2023 issue of Emergency Medicine by Gettel al.

For a study, researchers sought to determine how often diagnoses were made and the most common process results in geriatric emergency departments (EDs) and non-geriatric EDs that were part of the American College of Emergency Physicians Clinical Emergency Data Registry (CEDR). 

They did an observational study of ED visits by older people in the CEDR in 2021. The analysis group was made up of 6,444,110 trips to 38 geriatric emergency departments and 152 non-geriatric emergency departments that were matched. The EDs’ connection to the Geriatric ED Accreditation program of the American College of Emergency Physicians found the geriatric ED status.  By grouping people by age, they looked at the identification rates (X/1000) for 4 common elderly syndromes and a set of common process outcomes, such as the length of stay in the emergency department, the rate of release, and the rate of return within 72 hours. It was more common for senior EDs to be diagnosed with three of the four diseases of interest in geriatric syndrome: urinary tract infection, dementia, and delirium/altered mental state. 

This was true for all age groups. The average time of stay for older people in emergency departments was shorter at geriatric EDs than at nongeriatric EDs. However, the rate of 72-hour visits was the same for all age groups. The median release rate for adults aged 65 to 74 years was 67.5%. For adults aged 75 to 84 years, it was 60.8%, and for adults aged 85 years or older, it was 55.6%. For adults aged 65 to 74, the median release rate at nongeriatric ED sites was 69.0%. For adults aged 75 to 84, it was 64.2%, and for adults aged >85, it was 61.3%. It was more common for geriatric syndromes to be diagnosed in geriatric EDs than in nongeriatric EDs. Still, geriatric EDs had shorter lengths of stay and the same rates of release and 72-hour revisits. These results set the first standards for how emergency care works in geriatric EDs compared to EDs that don’t treat seniors.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196064423003785