The Impact Of Assessment And Intervention By The Frailty Intervention Team On Emergency Department Re-attendance Rates Of Older Adults

Abstract Background The mean age of patients presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) is rising significantly each year in line with the ageing population. Older adults with frailty often present with complex medical issues on a background of multiple comorbidities. This poses challenges in the provision of timely assessment, diagnosis and treatment in the emergency environment. Previous research in this area has suggested that older adults attending the ED who receive specialist input from multidisciplinary geriatric teams experience improved outcomes, lower hospital admission and re-attendance rates. Frailty Intervention Team (FIT) services are supported by the Integrated Care Programmes for Older People at local and national levels. Methods Our FIT team in ED, composed of 3.5 Whole Time Equivalents (WTE), captured data on all reviewed patients over 75, from January – December 2023. Data was extracted on the cohort who were discharged home from the integrated patient management system (IPIMS). ED re-attendance rates within 30 days were then calculated. Results 384 patients 75 were seen by FIT and discharged home from January – December 2023. 22 (6%) of these re-attended ED within 30 days. Conclusion The results of this review indicate that FIT teams working in the ED contribute towards improving older adults care by reducing rates of admission and re-attendance. Factors contributing to this include improved time to comprehensive geriatric assessment and enhanced pathways with community services supporting discharge. The average length of stay of patients seen by FIT and admitted is 10 days, therefore over 3500 bed days were saved by this small team in 2023. These results provide strong evidence that even frail, older patients can be safely and effectively discharged from ED with minimal risk for re-attendance.