Older adults should be prepared for hospital visits

Dr. Robert C. Salinas, an OU Physicians geriatrician who has served as a consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid on fall prevention and medication safety in seniors, says, “People don’t plan ahead for visits to a hospital emergency room, but people 65 and over would be wise to do so.”

Emergency room visitations can be a potentially vulnerable time for an older person. Emergency rooms generally are not organized to meet the needs of older patients and their family members because they are designed to quickly triage lifethreatening emergencies.

Dr. Salinas suggests patients and their family members can be better prepared by compiling the following information and keeping it in an easily accessible place for caregivers or emergency responders.

• Name of the hospital emergency room you would prefer if you have to get there by ambulance. (Share this information with a family member or health care decision maker ahead of time.)

• Contact information (name, telephone, relationship) of the people you would want to be notified.

•Copies of any legal documents that pertain to advance care planning like a durable power of attorney, advanced directive, living will, a physician order for life sustaining treatment or an Oklahoma Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment form, or OKPOLST.

• OKPOLST isa physician’s order that documents and directs a patient’s medical treatment preferences when faced with life-limiting illnesses and irreversible conditions.Read more about the form at www.okpolst. com.

• A list of medications you are currently taking, along with over-the-counter medications. A list of any possible allergic reactions.

• The name of your primary care doctor and contact information so that all hospital emergency room information can be sent to him or her.