San Antonio Regional Hospital Earns Geriatric ED Accreditation

(UPLAND, Ca) – November 16, 2023 – The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), with support from The Gary and Mary West Health Institute and John A. Hartford Foundation, has granted San Antonio Regional Hospital Level 3 Geriatric Emergency Department (GED) accreditation because of the hospital’s outstanding efforts to provide the highest standards of care to the community’s senior population.

The GEDA accreditation program is the culmination of years of progress in emergency care of older adults.  In 2014, ACEP along with the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, Emergency Nurses Association, and American Geriatrics Society, developed and released geriatric ED guidelines, recommending measures ranging from adding geriatric-friendly equipment to specialized staff, to more routine screening for delirium, dementia, and fall risk, among other vulnerabilities.

The voluntary GEDA program, which includes three levels similar to trauma center designations, provides specific criteria and goals for emergency clinicians and administrators to target.  The accreditation process provides more than two dozen best practices for geriatric care.  San Antonio voluntarily sought accreditation status to:

• Improve patient outcomes
• Provide standardized approaches to care that address common geriatric issues
• Ensure optimal transitions of care from the ED to other settings (inpatient, home, community-based care, rehabilitation, long-term care)
• Improve emergency department throughput
• Make a positive impact on the bottom line
• Support geriatric-focused quality improvement
  

“San Antonio Regional Hospital is dedicated to providing our older patients with well-coordinated, quality care,” commented Thomas Cho, MD, Medical Director of the Emergency Department at San Antonio Regional Hospital.  “Our geriatric patients often have complex medical and psychosocial care needs.  As an accredited geriatric ED,  we are able to implement best practice care standards to specifically address the unique needs of this patient population.”

Download the full press release here.

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