Daniel Lasserson, senior clinical researcher, and Maggie Webb, unit manager, in the emergency multidisciplinary unit.An emergency unit designed exclusively for old and frail patients is keeping them out of acute hospital and helping to prevent bed-blocking.
The emergency multidisciplinary unit (EMU) established at Abingdon community hospital in Oxfordshire is hoped to become the national model for the future of emergency care for older people.
Patients can be referred to the EMU, which is seen as an alternative to an acute hospital A&E, by either their own GP, a community nurse or ambulance paramedic.
The unit, which is open seven days a week from 8am-8pm on weekdays and 10am-4pm on weekends, is not available for patients who have suffered a stroke or a heart attack, who would still be taken to the local acute hospital's A&E. The majority of the 5,500 patients it has seen arrive with chest or bladder infection or heart failure. The average patient age is 89.
Staffed by elderly care physicians, GPs, nurses, healthcare assistants, therapists and social workers, the unit can quickly assess a patient. It has point of care blood testing with rapid results and X-ray facilities so the unit can guarantee speedy diagnosis.
The EMU has five hospital beds available for patients who may need to be kept in for a maximum 72 hours. A "hospital at home" nursing team is also available to provide support to patients who are sent home to recover.
"I would say that the EMU is more than just a casualty for older frail patients – it's more intensive because we aim to provide care for the episode at the time or for a number of days," says Dr Daniel Lasserson, a GP and senior clinical researcher at the department of primary care health sciences, University of Oxford, who helped design this new model of care.
Lasserson adds: "Its aims to deliver an acute care pathway for frail older patients that does not rely on bed-based care, yet can still provide appropriate medical, nursing and therapist treatments within an individually tailored care plan as close to the patient's home as possible.
"It was designed to challenge the existing urgent care pathway of admission to an acute hospital with its associated harms of unfamiliar and physically challenging environment and loss of independence."
The EMU, he says, addresses the dilemmas of how to best care for a growing elderly population with complex needs and multiple chronic conditions and to provide an alternative to "office hours" general practice or acute hospital bed-based care.
According to the EMU audit, 65% of patients who are assessed by the unit are able to stay in their own home – only 17% of patients need acute hospital care.
Lasserson says this new way of working, known as "interface medicine", is challenging the traditional medical training and care. Oxford has created an Interface Medicines Fellowship and is in discussions with Health Education England about how it can be developed nationally.
This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to receive regular emails and exclusive offers.
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