A Modern-Day Purgatory: Older Emergency Department Patients with Non-Operative Injuries

Older adults frequently present to the emergency department (ED) with injuries that do not require operative treatment but are sufficiently severe to make it unsafe for them to return home. These patients typically do not meet criteria for an ‘inpatient’ hospital admission. However, because of the limited reimbursement for observation patients, admitting physicians are often reluctant to accept these patients in to observation. Admission to a skilled nursing or assisted living facility from the ED or rapid access to additional in-home care is also often difficult or impossible. As a result, older patients with non-operative injuries often spend a long time in the ED waiting for an appropriate disposition. We describe the challenges of identifying an appropriate disposition for these patients, the consequences for patients, and some potential solutions to this commonly encountered problem.