NCT07237334

A Prospective Cohort Study of Clinical and Process Outcomes of Older Adults That Transition Through the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Unit(GEM-U)

A Prospective Cohort Study of the Clinical and Process Outcomes of Older Adults That Transition Through the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Unit (GEM-U)

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 150 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Limerick · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 75 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study will characterise the patients using the Geriatric Emergency Medicine Unit, a unit which provides specialist care for patients aged 75 years and older attending the emergency department. It will examine how this specialist care impacts their health in terms of a number of different outcomes, such as; function, quality of life and health care usage; for example admission to the acute hospital.

Detailed description

The emergency department is a particularly challenging and busy environment, particularly for older adults living with frailty. It is widely acknowledged throughout the literature and national healthcare strategy that these older adults require holistic, person centred care that targets the intricacies of multifaceted, complex health issues. The geriatric emergency medicine unit (GEM-U) aims to provide such care through the framework of comprehensive geriatric assessment, with in-put from a team of healthcare disciplines. The main aim of this study is to look at how this specialist care impacts patient outcomes, such as acute admission. Clinical and process outcomes of participants will be examined using patient reported outcome measures, which will include; 1. Global measure of function (Barthel Index) 2. Delirium screen (4AT +/- Delirium Rating Scale)\* 3. Frailty status (Clinical Frailty Scale) 4. Nutritional status (Mini Nutritional Assesment) 5. Quality of life (EuroQoL-5D-5L). 6. Patient satisfaction (PSQ-18). Participants will be followed at 30 days and 6 months post recruitment. All participants will give fully informed consent. The STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) standardised reporting guidelines will be followed in the conduct and reporting of this research. Data will be statistically analysed

Conditions

• Frailty

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-02-10
• Primary completion: 2026-03-30
• Completion: 2026-03-30
• First posted: 2025-11-19
• Last updated: 2025-11-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Ireland