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Hospital at Home:
Patient Care Model of the Future?
An innovative forward-looking health care model, Hospital at Home provides in-home acute hospital-level care to older patients while reducing costs and decreasing geriatric complications.
Read more »
Comprehensive Preoperative Assessment
Optimal surgical outcomes in elderly patients require comprehensive preoperative assessment and correction of deficiencies to the greatest extent possible. Read more »
Antihistamine Risks
Health care professionals should take steps to increase the awareness of side effects associated with first-generation antihistamines. Educating older patients is especially important because of the widespread OTC availability of these antihistamines. Read more » |
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Fractures generate a significant economic burden on our health care system, not to mention the devastating pain and quality-of-life challenges they create for older adults. Fractures can lead to elders’ immobility and many times prompt a downward health spiral that ends in death.
Reducing the incidence of fractures among older adults is worthy of additional efforts that may be required toward that end. A recent study has found that mailing reminders to primary care physicians and urging them to follow up with fracture patients has proven effective in improving osteoporosis management.
It’s a system that works and may be worth implementing to bridge the care gap that exists around elders’ devastating fractures.
In addition to reading our e-newsletter, be sure to visit Today's Geriatric Medicine's website at www.TodaysGeriatricMedicine.com, where you’ll find news and information that’s relevant and reliable. We welcome your feedback at TGMeditor@gvpub.com. Follow Today's Geriatric Medicine on Facebook and Twitter, too.
— Barbara Worthington, editor |
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Simple Reminders May Help Prevent Fractures
Reminding primary care physicians to test at-risk patients for osteoporosis can prevent fractures and reduce health care costs, according to a recent study accepted for publication in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Osteoporosis is common, costly, and undertreated. Low-trauma fractures in older adults are a red flag for osteoporosis, but those at risk often are not treated for the condition. Rates of osteoporosis testing and treatment typically are less than 20% in the first year after a fracture.
“Sending family doctors and patients a reminder letter about evaluating fracture patients for osteoporosis significantly improved care at a very low cost,” says William D. Leslie, MD, MSc, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and senior study author. “The procedure more than paid for itself; in the long-term, it is projected to prevent fractures and save money.”
The intervention involved two mail-based notices, one sent only to the physicians of more than 4,000 patients with recent fractures and the other sent to both physicians and patients. The notices to physicians were personalized letters that included bone mineral density testing guidelines and a flowchart of osteoporosis management. The second intervention combined the physician letter with a personalized letter to patients acknowledging the recent fracture and recommending they see their primary care physicians for an osteoporosis assessment.
The mail notices were inexpensive but effective. The notice to physicians cost only $7.12 (Canadian) per patient, and the note to physicians and patients cost $8.45. Within one year, osteoporosis treatments increased by 1.5-fold (4%) as a result of the physician letter. The physician-patient outreach increased treatment rates by 1.8-fold (6%) over the same time span.
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