Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
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To examine associations between healthcare transitions at the end of life (EOL; late transitions) and bereaved family members' and friends' assessment of EOL quality of care (QOC). ⋯ Transitions in the last 3 days of life are associated with more unmet needs, higher rate of concerns, and lower rating of QOC than when such late transitions are absent, especially when that transition is between a nursing home and hospital.
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To evaluate the utility of monitoring emergency medical services (EMS) call patterns to identify older adults who may benefit from targeted fall prevention and medical monitoring strategies. ⋯ Certain older individuals are at risk of having multiple fall-related calls to EMS over short periods of time, sometimes within hours of previous calls. In our current healthcare system, no significant intervention or follow-up is offered or available by emergency first response teams to prevent subsequent falls. This study demonstrates the need for a paradigm change in our healthcare system that helps reduce resource utilization for the first responder community for fall-related calls in older adults and re-directs those resources to implement nationwide fall-prevention strategies to decrease fall related disability and death.