industry & policy
Emergency room for improvement
A nurse-led initiative to improve the care of older people in emergency departments is garnering praise .
Marianne Wallis interviewed by Dallas Bastian
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Queensland nursing project focused on providing quicker and more personalised treatment to older patients has received a state award .
The Geriatric Emergency Department Intervention ( GEDI ) won the customer focus category at the 2016 Queensland Premier ’ s Awards for Excellence .
The project is a joint effort between the University of the Sunshine Coast ( USC ), Nambour Hospital and the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service . It was developed by USC nursing academics and a team of nurses and doctors with specialist geriatric experience .
GEDI aims to decrease hospital and emergency admission rates for elderly people and reduce their length of stay , while improving staff and patient satisfaction .
Professor of nursing Marianne Wallis , who heads the GEDI team at USC , said emergency departments can be confusing , noisy and dangerous places for frail older people .
“ We ’ re making sure they spend as little time as possible in that environment , and can quickly access the specific kind of care they need ,” Wallis said .
“ The preliminary results of the project are so encouraging that we have already received state funding to have this program rolled out on a wider scale .”
GEDI is part of a larger project that aims to strengthen the capacity of the aged-care sector and improve interaction between aged-care facilities and hospitals .
Aged Care Insite sits down with Wallis to find out how GEDI helps to reduce the length of people ’ s hospital stays and how other hospitals or health services can be involved in the project .
ACI : What does GEDI set out to do and what role do nurses play in delivering the intervention ? MW : GEDI is an intervention situated in the emergency department that is predominantly nurseled , but has a physician champion . We have a clinical nurse consultant and a number of clinical nurses who basically fast-track and improve the care for older people if they have to come into an emergency department , particularly the frail older person .
What are the key elements of the program that have led to its success ? I think there are a couple of aspects that have led to its success . This is a real bundled intervention . The nurses , first of all , they screen patients and work out who are the frail aged . They can then do a more in-depth assessment and liaise very quickly and effectively with emergency doctors and geriatricians and a whole host of other allied health and diagnostic services to get a real fast track on care . And because they are experts in both emergency and gerontology nursing , they are also a great resource for all of the staff .
I think the fact that this service is seen as a key supporting resource within our ED is one of the elements of success . There is great buy-in from all of the ED clinicians around this particular service delivery model .
The other key element of success is that the clinicians partnered with a university so that we can help them get really rigorous research results out of this and show just how well this works . People understand that it ’ s a common sense idea , and although it ’ s about diverting resources from one place to another , the clinicians and the hospital service administrators are already seeing the benefits , even before the research is finalised .
12 agedcareinsite . com . au