Older Emergency Department Users and Hospitalization After an Index Visit: Results of ER2 Database

Crowding and delay became chronic conditions in emergency departments (EDs) in high income countries. Emergency medicine has the mandate to provide care to any patient requesting treatment 24 hours a day. As there is a lack of primary care physicians who are able to provide the necessary care to patients, they are forced to seek care in ED. Among these ED users, more and more patients are aged over 65 and account for up to a quarter of all ED users. Older ED users comparted to their younger counterparts are more at risk for long length of stay in ED and hospital, and hospital admission during an index ED visit. The occurrence of these short-terms adverse events may be reduced if older ED users risk is assessed upon their ED arrival. Few studies have examined risk for short-terms adverse events. They suggested that clinical tools based on a brief geriatric assessment with timely appropriate interventions could reduce the occurrence of short-terms ED adverse events.