BMC emergency medicine
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BMC emergency medicine · Nov 2019
Effectiveness of interventions to alleviate emergency department crowding by older adults: a systematic review.
The growing demand for elderly care often exceeds the ability of emergency department (ED) services to provide quality of care within reasonable time. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess the effectiveness of interventions on reducing ED crowding by older patients, and to identify core characteristics shared by successful interventions. ⋯ Inter-study heterogeneity and poor methodological quality hinder drawing firm conclusions on the intervention's effectiveness in reducing ED crowding by older adults. More evidence-based research is needed using uniform and valid effect measures.