Inpatient geriatric consultation.
Inpatient geriatric consultation services have the potential for educating large numbers of health professionals and influencing the clinical care of large numbers of patients. Such consultation can identify new diagnoses and recommend treatment of conditions whose appropriate management can improve patients' functional level. At San Francisco General Hospital, the most frequent recommendations were medication adjustment, management of dementia, delirium or depression, rehabilitation, and treatment of malnutrition. Of 35 patients slated to go to nursing homes at the time of consultation, 18 were rerouted to lower levels of care, and 14 eventually went home. Preliminary findings at the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Medical Center replicate these data.
D000368:Aged; D002140:California; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006757:Hospital Units; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team; D012017:Referral and Consultation