• Simon Paul Conroy, Kharwar Ansari, Mark Williams, Emily Laithwaite, Ben Teasdale, Jeremey Dawson, Suzanne Mason, and Jay Banerjee.
• University of Leicester School of Medicine, Room 540, Clinical Sciences Building Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester LE2 7LX, UK.
• Age Ageing. 2014 Jan 1; 43 (1): 109-14.

Backgroundthe ageing demographic means that increasing numbers of older people will be attending emergency departments (EDs). Little previous research has focused on the needs of older people in ED and there have been no evaluations of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) embedded within the ED setting.Methodsa pre-post cohort study of the impact of embedding CGA within a large ED in the East Midlands, UK. The primary outcome was admission avoidance from the ED, with readmissions, length of stay and bed-day use as secondary outcomes.Resultsattendances to ED increased in older people over the study period, whereas the ED conversion rate fell from 69.6 to 61.2% in people aged 85+, and readmission rates in this group fell from 26.0% at 90 days to 19.9%. In-patient bed-day use increased slightly, as did the mean length of stay.Discussionit is possible to embed CGA within EDs, which is associated with improvements in operational outcomes.

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