Tuesday, August 11, 2020
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Roper Hospital Emergency Department earns coveted national accolade for senior care
Downtown Roper Hospital’s Emergency Department has earned the American College of Emergency Physicians Level II (Silver) Geriatric Emergency Department designation.
It’s a coveted accolade, and Roper Hospital is the only facility in South Carolina that has received this honor.
“Our senior population has specialized needs that we are able to now meet,” said Dr. Daniel E. Lewis, a Roper Hospital emergency physician. “All of our patients will be treated with compassion and excellence as we always have at Roper Hospital.”
About 35 percent of patients seen at Roper Hospital ED are older than 65 years old. The fastest growing segment of South Carolina’s population is residents age 85 or older. By 2029, more than 1 million South Carolinians will be older than 65.
Geriatric EDs embrace a variety of best practices including:
- Ensuring geriatric-focused education and interdisciplinary staffing
- Providing standardized approaches to care that addresses common geriatric issues
- Ensuring optimal transitions of care from the ED to other settings (inpatient, home, community-based care, rehabilitation, long-term care)
- Promoting geriatric-focused quality improvement and enhancements of the physical environment and supplies. (i.e. non-skid floors, better lighting, availability of walkers and canes)
The senior friendly Emergency Department physical upgrades required for Geriatric ED certification were funded in part by a grant from the Henry and Sylvia Yaschik Foundation. Long-time residents of Charleston, Henry and Sylvia Yaschik, were deeply committed to giving back to their community and created a large philanthropic foundation to continue to support the secular and the Jewish values they embraced in their lifetimes. One of those upgrades was added in January when ED staff leveraged the power of art to encourage healing by hanging artwork created by Charleston County School of the Arts ninth and tenth graders.