Eisenhower Health Receives Bronze Level Accreditation for Geriatric Emergency Care

In recognition of its geriatric-focused emergency care, Eisenhower Health has again earned bronze level accreditation from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). A three-year Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation (GEDA) by ACEP acknowledges the institution’s dedication to providing a high standard of care that meets the unique health care needs of older adults in the Coachella Valley.

According to AARP^®, the number of older adults in the United States will top 88 million people, representing more than 20 percent of the population, by 2050.

“Older adults are at the heart of the Coachella Valley, both the neighbors who live here year-round and the thousands who return every season. That makes emergency care for older adults central to what we do,” says Eric Leroux MD, MBA, Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Quality Officer, Eisenhower Health. “In emergency medicine, older adults are not simply older patients; their emergencies are different. As an emergency physician, I know that for older adults, trauma most often arrives as a fall, and how we manage the injury, understand contributing factors, and care for the whole person are all critical to the outcomes that follow.  ACEP’s Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation, alongside the continued growth of our trauma program, reflects Eisenhower’s commitment to world-class care for older adults.”

The GEDA program is the culmination of years of progress in emergency care of older adults. In 2014, ACEP along with Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, Emergency Nurses Association, and American Geriatrics Society, developed and released geriatric ED guidelines, recommending measures ranging from adding geriatric-friendly equipment to specialized staff to more routine screening for delirium, dementia, and fall risk, among other vulnerabilities.

The voluntary GEDA program, which includes three levels similar to trauma center designations, provides specific criteria and goals for emergency clinicians and administrators to target. The accreditation process provides more than two dozen best practices for geriatric care and the level of GEDA accreditation achieved depends upon how many of these best practices an emergency department is able to meet.

A Level 3 GEDA (bronze standard) emergency department must incorporate many of these best practices, along with providing interdisciplinary geriatric education, and having geriatric appropriate equipment and supplies available.