UMEM Educational Pearls

Question

Providing consistent, quality emergency care to the elderly is critically important. The Geriatric Emergency Department (GED) guidelines, developed collaboratively, provide a standardized set of guidelines to help improve care of the geriatric population in the emergency department.

Answer

In order to improve the standards for geriatric emergency care, representatives from the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, Emergency Nurses Association, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine worked together to create the GED Guidelines. These guidelines create a template related to developing a geriatric focused emergency department, including specific recommendations related to staffing and administration, follow up and transition of care, education, quality improvement, equipment and supplies, as well as policies and procedures.

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