Seven in Ten Emergency Patients Are Elderly: How One Hospital's Flagship Specialties Provide a Safety Net

Huadong Hospital's emergency department receives about 250 patients a day, roughly 70 percent of them elderly, including many aged over 90. Drawing on its geriatric medicine program as a flagship discipline and on specialties such as hernia surgery, the hospital has built the capacity to manage complex acute conditions in very old patients. One 85-year-old woman from Jiangsu was brought in by ambulance with an incarcerated incisional hernia of the abdominal wall.

Su Yuantao, head of the emergency trauma center working group and deputy head of the East China Center for Acute Hernia Treatment, coordinated her reception, with anesthesia and nursing staff in place simultaneously. Specialists from anesthesiology, critical care medicine and cardiology jointly designed her perioperative plan, and she passed through the perioperative period smoothly. In an earlier case, an elderly patient with an incarcerated parastomal hernia developed pneumonia after emergency resection of necrotic bowel, and recovered and was discharged after more than two months in hospital with a surgical, critical care and respiratory team continuously adjusting the treatment plan.

The hospital also provides sign-language interpretation and full-process accompaniment for hearing-impaired patients, with Chen Xiaoyi, head of the hearing-assistance clinic, organizing regular sign-language training for medical staff.