Beyond Ageism
I was in Chicago yesterday. Bonnie Mahon and I gave a talk about the Seniors’ Emergency Center at Holy Cross Hospital. It’s a project that I did with Dean Judah Ronch from the Erickson School and a great team of professionals from Holy Cross.
Anyway it has been open for a year now and the results have been fantastic. Better care. Better outcomes. More satisfied patients and families. Nice.
While I was talking about this I realized, I think for the first time, that the core of the innovation actually involved stripping the bark off our culture’s core of ageism.
Deep down, the project involves helping skilled professionals deliver patient-centered care to people who just happen to be old.
Transcending ageism is never easy, and it is an ongoing battle, but it yields the widest most accesible path to improved quality.
We are going to need many more Seniors Emergency Centers in the years to come.
Hi Bill,
What an amazing achievement to get the new emergency facility started. I’ve read everything I can find about it and watched the video.
I wrote about the Holy Cross Emergency Center on my blog (I just started it a month ago after taking a 90- year old parent for an 8-hour emergency department visit and then promising afterward that we will not do it to her again — ever). My blog is more for therapy so no one reads it but my husband and me. But the writing is helping us keep a steady course as we continue as partners with our three wonderful parents.
Are other hospitals interested in exploring new emergency facilities for older adults? What possibilities are there for getting a hospital interested? Have you posted any ideas from your presentations? I don’t see much about this on your blog. I’d love to try and get a community group in Arlington together to see if we might interest Virginia Hospital Center. Has anyone from VHC been in touch with you?
Great job!!! Like your blog.
My best,
Marti Weston