Dr. Maureen Dale, assistant clinical professor in the division of geriatric medicine, is featured in a New York Times article that suggests the elderly are particularly vulnerable to repeat hospitalizations.
Dr. Maureen Dale and patient Bernadine Lewandowski are featured in a New York Times article that recognizes a high rate of hospital readmissions among older patients.
After a hospitalization, Lewandowski was discharged and the stress and disruptions in the experience “left her disoriented and weakened, a vulnerable state that researchers from Yale University call “post-hospital syndrome.”
The article recognizes that approximately 18 percent of discharged Medicare beneficiaries returned to the hospital, within 30 days, in 2016, according to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Making hospitals less destabilizing and more conducive to healing is identified as a goal for improving hospitalizations for the elderly.
UNC Health Care’s Hillsborough Campus is mentioned as one hospital implementing a cultural change, that already offers a less stressful environment for older patients with private rooms and specialized geriatric emergency rooms.
Dale, an assistant clinical professor in the division of geriatric medicine, led the geriatric inpatient service move to UNC Hillsborough and helped to create the innovative interprofessional geriatric team that now cares for hospitalized older adults. The service provides high-quality, patient centered care and continues to pursue new ways to improve the patient experience.
Dr. Dale’s specialty areas include outpatient primary geriatric care, geriatric syndromes including frailty and cognitive impairment, care of hospitalized older adults and graduate medical education in geriatrics.
The article can be accessed here: New York Times.