VA Emergency Rooms Prep for Elderly Vets

Half of our 19.5 million veterans are over the age of 65, and they make up 45% of emergency room visits at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, according to the VA.

Seniors come with their own set of medical conditions, such as delirium, cognitive impairment and others. The VA will now address the medical concerns of our senior veterans with the creation of Geriatric Emergency Departments. The plan, in collaboration with several civilian groups, is to create accredited geriatric departments in 70 VA facilities with specifically trained teams that will cover everything from medical, social work and community resources to working with senior veterans to reduce avoidable hospital admissions.

There will be three levels of age-appropriate care, with specific education for doctors and nurses. The VA has gone to a lot of trouble to identify just what is needed in each area.

They’ll do screenings to look for the risk of falling, caregiver burden, functional decline, delirium and cognitive impairment while recognizing underlying geriatric syndromes. (That’s where the specialized education comes in.)

But that’s just the beginning. They’ll look for signs of elder abuse and overall frailty, help with pharmacy and medication (and identify inappropriate and duplicate or contraindicated medications), look into pain control, arrange for transportation home and more.

The model of care for emergency department accreditation is three pages long with no detail too small to consider. They’ve even thought of the need for a large font in all printed instructions, nonslip floors, handrails and big signs.

So far, 20 emergency rooms in 15 states have applied for accreditation, with 16 facilities already accredited. Ten are partially accredited. The remaining sites will likely apply for accreditation by the end of 2022.

It looks like the VA is getting started just in time. The average age of veterans is 58, with the biggest bump in the curve ages 45 to 64 years old.