The clinical advantages of making our hospitals older adult friendly.

Abstract

Older adults (≥65 years old), now comprise half of the inpatient population. Catering for the needs of this group requires consideration of the processes of care, the inpatient environment and care practices operating in our hospitals. Older adults are often multimorbid, more likely than older adults in the community to be malnourished and have coexistent physical and cognitive impairments. These older adults are at great risk of suffering hospital associated harms or being designated as "bed blockers", partly due to inadequate understanding of their needs, a failure of recognition or an unwillingness to address them. The adoption of older adult friendly care presents considerable opportunity to transform the manner in which care is delivered in order to mitigate avoidable harms and optimize outcomes for older adults. This review explores the nature of our older adult inpatients, the implications of older adult friendly care, the requirement for true interprofessional care, the advantages of systematic assessment which spans pre-hospital to post-hospital care and highlights specific interventions to deal with in hospital problems which differentially impair health related outcomes for older adults. As such it raises awareness of the needs of older adults under cardiological to improve outcomes for hospitalized older adults.