Sending the elderly home. Assessing the risk

In our current health care system, health care agencies are seeing their budgets reduced and their human and support resources stretched to the limit. Many health regions are grappling with decreasing dollars by finding ways to reduce patient length-of-stay in acute care hospitals. But sending patients home earlier can present problems, especially for geriatric patients, whose numbers are swelling as baby boomers age. Society's traditional caregivers, women, are more and more likely to be employed outside the home, therefore are unavailable to assist with the care of older adults. Additionally, consumers have become more actively involved in their health care and are demanding a high quality of care. For all these reasons, it is essential that discharge planning be an integral part of acute-care services.