None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Geriatric Evaluation and Management (GEM), sometimes called slow stream rehabilitation, manages patients with complex conditions associated with ageing, cognitive dysfunction, chronic illness and disability. A multidisciplinary team provides care that helps the person to return home with optimal levels of health. There is strong evidence that Geriatric Evaluation and Management works but hospital length of stay is long and the service is typically only provided from Monday to Friday. Providing Saturday allied health services in other areas of rehabilitation reduces length of stay. Using routinely collected patient data, this project will find out if the introduction by the health service of a Saturday multidisciplinary allied health service in Geriatric Evaluation and Management is a cost effective way of reducing length of stay and improving health outcomes.
Interventions
An allied health service for Geriatric Evaluation and Management will be provided on Saturdays in addition to the usual Monday to Friday service for a period of 6 months in the intervention Geriatric and Evaluation Management ward. The additional allied health service will be provided at levels that approximate Monday to Friday service levels for: occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work, and allied health assistants. In addition on Saturdays speech pathology, psychology and dietetics in
An allied health service for Geriatric Evaluation and Management will be provided on Saturdays in addition to the usual Monday to Friday service for a period of 6 months in the intervention Geriatric and Evaluation Management ward. The additional allied health service will be provided at levels that approximate Monday to Friday service levels for: occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work, and allied health assistants. In addition on Saturdays speech pathology, psychology and dietetics in the intervention ward will be available to provide an on-call service. The additional allied health services on a Saturday will provide additional therapy for patients admitted the intervention ward for Geriatric Evaluation and Management. There are no minimal years of experience requirements for allied health clinicians providing the Saturday service but will be expected to have experience working in Geriatric Evaluation and Management. Occasions of service provided by the allied health clinicians will be monitored using the health service data base each month.
Sponsors
Eastern Health
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
50 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
All patients admitted for Geriatric Evaluation and Management in the two participating wards during the data collection phase
Exclusion criteria
1. Patients not admitted under Geriatric Evaluation and Management (e.g. for Transition Care Program). 2. Patients admitted prior to the data collection phase will be excluded. 3. Patients readmitted to Geriatric Evaluation and Management after a previous Geriatric Evaluation and Management admission during the data collection phase will be considered to have been admitted during the initial admission.
Outcome results
None listed