Abstract
Geriatric consultation teams are one of the models for bringing comprehensive geriatric assessment to vulnerable and frail older people in the acute care hospital setting. While ward-based comprehensive geriatric assessment has been established as effective with reference to improving functional status and other outcomes, the team-based variant remains unproven for outcomes other than mortality in the medium term, as shown in a recent study published in BMC Medicine by Deschodt and colleagues. Further research might establish the effectiveness of the team-based model but, for current clinical practice, the emphasis should be on streaming older people with complex problems needing multidisciplinary assessment and treatment to ward-based models of comprehensive geriatric assessment.
Highlights
Hospitals are experiencing an increasing demand for acute hospital services for older people
What are the benefits of Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) delivered by mobile teams? One model of CGA is that which is delivered by a mobile team
In order to resolve whether or not CGA delivered by mobile inpatient geriatric consultation teams is, beneficial, Deschodt and colleagues performed a systematic review of the literature based on all relevant studies [6]
Summary
Hospitals are experiencing an increasing demand for acute hospital services for older people. Treatment effects are small and there is large heterogeneity Perhaps this is not surprising when the studies were conducted in acute medical wards. It only included randomized trials, used “living at home” as its primary outcome, used fixed effects models if there was limited heterogeneity (I squared
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