UNLABELLED Older people are majority users of health and social care services in the UK and internationally. Many older people who access these services have frailty, which is a state of vulnerability to adverse outcomes. The existing health care response to frailty is mainly secondary care-based and reactive to the acute health crises of falls, delirium and immobility. A more proactive, integrated, person-centred and community-based response to frailty is required. The British Geriatrics Society Fit for Frailty guideline is consensus best practice guidance for the management of frailty in community and outpatient settings. RECOGNITION OF FRAILTY The BGS recommends that all encounters between health and social care staff and older people in community and outpatient settings should include an assessment for frailty. A gait speed 10s; and a score of ≥3 on the PRISMA 7 questionnaire can indicate frailty. The common clinical presentations of frailty (falls, delirium, sudden immobility) can also be used to indicate the possible presence of frailty. MANAGEMENT OF FRAILTY The BGS recommends an holistic medical review based on the principles of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) for all older people identified with frailty. This will: diagnose medical illnesses to optimise treatment; apply evidence-based medication review checklists (e.g. STOPP/START criteria); include discussion with older people and carers to define the impact of illness; work with the older person to create an individualised care and support plan. SCREENING FOR FRAILTY The BGS does not recommend population screening for frailty using currently available instruments.

/pdf/best-practice-guidelines-for-the-management-of-frailty-a-2lo8rtwau0.pdf

Best practice guidelines for the management of frailty: a British Geriatrics Society, Age UK and Royal College of General Practitioners report

Objective To systematically quantify the prevalence, severity, and nature of preventable patient harm across a range of medical settings globally. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, Cinahl and Embase, WHOLIS, Google Scholar, and SIGLE from January 2000 to January 2019. The reference lists of eligible studies and other relevant systematic reviews were also searched. Review methods Observational studies reporting preventable patient harm in medical care. The core outcomes were the prevalence, severity, and types of preventable patient harm reported as percentages and their 95% confidence intervals. Data extraction and critical appraisal were undertaken by two reviewers working independently. Random effects meta-analysis was employed followed by univariable and multivariable meta regression. Heterogeneity was quantified by using the I2 statistic, and publication bias was evaluated. Results Of the 7313 records identified, 70 studies involving 337 025 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence for preventable patient harm was 6% (95% confidence interval 5% to 7%). A pooled proportion of 12% (9% to 15%) of preventable patient harm was severe or led to death. Incidents related to drugs (25%, 95% confidence interval 16% to 34%) and other treatments (24%, 21% to 30%) accounted for the largest proportion of preventable patient harm. Compared with general hospitals (where most evidence originated), preventable patient harm was more prevalent in advanced specialties (intensive care or surgery; regression coefficient b=0.07, 95% confidence interval 0.04 to 0.10). Conclusions Around one in 20 patients are exposed to preventable harm in medical care. Although a focus on preventable patient harm has been encouraged by the international patient safety policy agenda, there are limited quality improvement practices specifically targeting incidents of preventable patient harm rather than overall patient harm (preventable and non-preventable). Developing and implementing evidence-based mitigation strategies specifically targeting preventable patient harm could lead to major service quality improvements in medical care which could also be more cost effective.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/366/bmj.l4185.full.pdf

Prevalence, severity, and nature of preventable patient harm across medical care settings: systematic review and meta-analysis

A systematic review of the effectiveness and roles of advanced practice nursing in older people.

Maintaining patient safety in acute hospitals is a global health challenge. Traditionally, patient safety measures have been concentrated on critical care and surgical patients. In this review the medical literature was reviewed over the last ten years on aspects of patient safety specifically related to patients with dementia. Patients with dementia do badly in hospital with frequent adverse events resulting in the geriatric syndromes of falls, delirium and loss of function with increased length of stay and increased mortality. Contributory factors include inadequate assessment and treatment, inappropriate intervention, discrimination, low staff levels and lack of staff training. Unfortunately there is no one simple solution to this problem, but what is needed is a multifactorial, multilevel approach at the seven levels of care - patient, task, staff, team, environment, organisation and institution. Improving safety and quality of care for patients with dementia in acute hospitals will benefit all patients and is an urgent priority for the NHS.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0141076813476497

How can we keep patients with dementia safe in our acute hospitals? A review of challenges and solutions

Objectives: To describe the level, preventability and categories of adverse events (AEs) identified by medical record review using the Global Trigger Tool (GTT). To estimate when the AE occurred in the course of the hospital stay and to compare voluntary AE reporting with medical record reviewing. Design: Two-stage retrospective record review. Setting: 650-bed university hospital. Participants: 20 randomly selected medical records were reviewed every month from 2009 to 2012. Primary and secondary outcome measures: AE/1000 patient-days. Proportion of AEs found by GTT found also in the voluntary reporting system. AE categorisation. Description of when during hospital stay AEs occur. Results: A total of 271 AEs were detected in the 960 medical records reviewed, corresponding to 33.2 AEs/ 1000 patient-days or 20.5% of the patients. Of the AEs, 6.3% were reported in the voluntary AE reporting system. Hospital-acquired infections were the most common AE category. The AEs occurred and were detected during the hospital stay in 65.5% of cases; the rest occurred or were detected within 30 days before or after the hospital stay. The AE usually occurred early during the hospital stay, and the hospital stay was 5 days longer on average for patients with an AE. Conclusions: Record reviewing identified AEs to a much larger extent than voluntary AE reporting. Healthcare organisations should consider using a portfolio of tools to gain a comprehensive picture of AEs. Substantial costs could be saved if AEs were prevented.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/4/5/e004879.full.pdf

Characterisations of adverse events detected in a university hospital: a 4-year study using the Global Trigger Tool method

Purpose Large international studies have shown that older hospital inpatients are at particular risk of adverse events. The purpose of this review was to synthesize data from studies designed to assess the scale and nature of this harm, with the ultimate aim of informing the development of new safety and quality measurement tools to facilitate improved hospital care for these vulnerable patients.

Data sources, study selection and data extraction A systematic search using Ovid SP and other sources was carried out, rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and quality assessment of included studies was conducted. Data were synthesized to give a picture of the incidence, types, causes, preventability and outcomes of adverse events in older medical inpatients.

Results of data synthesis Nine relevant studies were identified. A wide range of adverse event incidences were reported, from 5.29 to 6.2% in re-analyses of large adverse event studies, to 60% in studies in which the development of ‘geriatric syndromes’ (e.g. falls, delirium, incontinence) was also considered to be adverse events. Important causative factors other than age included clinical complexity, co-morbidity, illness severity, reduced functional ability and lower quality of care. Adverse events in older people lead to unnecessary interventions with resultant complications and increased length of stay.

Conclusion More work is needed to understand the complex nature of adverse events in older inpatients. We must tailor safety measurement and improvement strategies to address challenges presented by the complexity of the geriatric syndromes and the processes of care encountered by older inpatients.

What is known about adverse events in older medical hospital inpatients? A systematic review of the literature.

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Susannah Jane Long

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

What is known about adverse events in older medical hospital inpatients? A systematic review of the literature.