The GEPARD study aims to validate if a pre-hospital triage-tool could aid the EMS-personnel to re-direct the geriatric patient to an adequate level of care.
Overcrowded Emergency Rooms is a common reality these days. The patient group that seems to suffer the most from this is the one of the elderly - the geriatric patients. In a reality where the ER recieves a constant high flow of patients with acute, life-threatening conditions, geriatric patients with mild and/or chronical conditions tends to be down prioritized by the ER, since they rarely are in need of the heavy medical resources that the emergency hospital can offer. However this is not the same thing as to claim that the geriatric patient does not need healthcare in any extent.
A recent survey by HSN shows that geriatric patients often lacks knowledge of where to turn with their healthcare needs and thus calls the national emergency number, 112, whereas an ambulance is dispatched to transport the patient to the nearest ER.
A subsequent survey done by the Stockholm hospital, Södersjukhuset (northern Europes largest ER measured in admissions/year) indicated that 65% of the admitted geriatric patients where in fact not in the need of the ER’s medical resources. The medical examination and treatment could rather had been taken care of on another helathcare-level e.g a geriatric clinic.
The two million dollar questions that needs to be asked in 2009 are of course: “Should all geriatric patients be transported by ambulance to an ER?” And “Is the ER the optimal care-giver for a geriatric patient with mild or chronical diseases?”
One initiative that asks these questions and tries to adress these issues is the on-going study GEPARD (Geriatric Patients Right to Adequate Destination), conducted by Stockholms Prehospitala Center (Stockholm center of prehospital care) in collaboration with local partners.
The main purpose of the GEPARD study is to validate if a prehospital triage-tool could aid the EMS-personell to re-direct the geriatric patient to an adequate level of care, eg geriatric clinic or primary care centers.
The GEPARD study is being done out of the hypothesis that about 20% of the patients included in the study could be optimally transported to a more adequate care giving instance rather than the ER, and thereby giving the geriatric patient a quicker more accurate care and at the same time reduce some workload from the ER.
The randomized study will include 600 patients and is expected to be ongoing for some 14 months.
Read more (In Swedish)!