Presented by Dr Rosie Dwyer

Australia’s population, like that of other high-income countries, is ageing. As people age they are more likely to require assistance with activities of daily living. Some have higher needs and require nursing care in residential aged care facilities (RACF). The proportion of people living in RACFs increases significantly with age, to over 25% of people aged 85 years and older. The number of Australians living in RACFs continues to increase each year. Globally, it has been demonstrated that older people, in particular RACF-residents, frequently engage with emergency medical services with high rates of emergency ambulance use, emergency department (ED) presentations and unplanned hospital admissions. Emergency healthcare for RACF-dwelling people may vary considerably from those living in the community with differences in clinical presentation, case-mix and illness severity between these patient groups. Additionally, acute care and emergency transfer may be a considerable burden with potential for significant adverse outcomes from these episodes. Overall, from available evidence, it is not known if benefits of this current model of emergency care outweigh potential adverse complications of transfer for this group of frail, vulnerable patients.

Biography: Dr Rosie Dwyer is an Emergency Physician based at Frankston Hospital in Melbourne with additional clinical experience in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine and Military Medicine. She is an Early Career Researcher with the Pre-hospital, Emergency and Trauma (PET) research group in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University with broad research interests encompassing health systems, emergency and prehospital care and acute care of older people.

This presentation was part of ANZCP2018 Sydney on 23rd & 24th August 2018.