Abstract
Ensuring Consultant Geriatrician reviews for patients on the Older Persons Assessment Unit.
Weston General Hospital (WGH) is working towards becoming a centre of excellence for frailty in keeping with its demographic. As part of this, there is a purpose-built Older Persons Assessment Unit (OPAU) compromising of 14 beds and Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) unit compromising of 3 beds. Our OPAU medical team alongside the therapy team strive to ensure that each patient is reviewed by a Consultant Geriatrician during their admission, in addition to the routine medical and therapy teams to ensure expert oversight is sought to enhance patient care and subsequent outcomes as part of a gold standard Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA)(2,4). The standard worked towards is that every patient admitted to the OPAU is reviewed by a Consultant Geriatrician to reduce length of stay and optimise their outcomes.
A retrospective audit was conducted of the patients admitted to OPAU in the months of August and December 2024. Notes were reviewed to ascertain if patients had a consultant Geriatrician review during their stay on OPAU. Data is captured on a spreadsheet to be reviewed and fed back to the wider teams to discuss current workings and any further work that is needed.
In December 90% of patients admitted to OPAU were reviewed by a Consultant Geriatrician during their admission. The 10% of patients that are not reviewed by a Consultant Geriatrician are reviewed by other specialties such as a Consultant Cardiologist or Oncologist; but still an expert in the patients complaining condition.
The majority of patients are reviewed by a consultant geriatrician, as part of the MDT for a CGA review on the OPAU which have further enabled more holistic care and successful discharges as well as a reduction in length of admissions and further readmissions. Those who were not reviewed by a geriatrician mostly presented at weekends; we aim to strive to 7 day consultant geriatrician cover in the future.
References:
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