Improving older patients' experiencein the emergency room:the senior-friendly emergency room

摘要

Frail seniors present a unique and growing challenge to emergency healthcare providers because of the complexity of their health conditions, the atypical nature of their presentations, the lack of frailty-focused knowledge and ageism. As a result, elderly patients are more likely to experience adverse events and negative health outcomes than younger people. Fortunately, research in this area has grown dramatically over the last few decades bringing opportunities to improve the elderly patient's experience in the emergency room. In the present article we use a framework for building more senior-friendly hospitals to review these developments in five key domains - processes of care, the emotional and behavioral environment, ethics in care and research, the physical environment, and organizational support.