Objective: To evaluate the effect of an Inpatient Geriatric Consultation Team on patient outcome.
Design: Randomized controlled clinical trial.
Setting: A non-academic-affiliated 503-bed community hospital.
Patients: All inpatients over the age of 70 years. Sixty-two patients received multidimensional geriatric assessment, and 58 patients received no intervention.
Intervention: Team assessment, leading to formal recommendations to the attending physician.
Measurements: Data were collected on hospital length of stay, referrals to community service, discharge destination, hospital readmissions in 6 months, number of post-discharge physician visits, and change in functional status. Mortality at 6 months and at 1 year was determined for each patient.
Main results: At 6 months, 12/58 patients (21%) had died in the control group versus 3/62 (6%) patients in the experimental group (P = 0.01). During hospitalization, the length-of-stay was 10.1 days for the control group versus 9.0 days for the experimental group (P = 0.20). The control group had significantly more readmissions (0.6 per patient vs 0.3 per patient, P = 0.02). A higher number of experimental patients, 22% (13/59), showed improvement in ADL scores compared with 7% (4/46) of control patients, P = 0.07. At one year for all randomized patients, 7/68 (10%) of experimental patients and 13/64 (20%) of control patients had died.
Conclusions: Short-term mortality can be reduced in community inpatient acute hospital settings by comprehensive geriatric consultation teams. Important differences in mortality remain at 1 year of followup. Trends towards improved functional status and fewer hospital readmissions favor the intervention group.