Use of emergency departments by older people from residential care: A population based study

Abstract

Objective: to investigate the differences between emergency department (ED) presentations of older people who do and do not live in residential care facilities (RCFs). Design: a population-based retrospective cohort study. ED records linked to ambulance and hospital morbidity records. Setting: public EDs in Perth, Western Australia. Subjects: all patients 65 years and older who presented to EDs between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2006 (n = 97,161). Measurements: patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Logistic regression was used to model the effect of living in RCFs on the likelihood of a particular ED diagnosis, hospital admission and in-hospital death. Results: the age-sex st..