CDC: Many Emergency Department Visits by Nursing Home Residents are Preventable

A new report from the CDC - based on findings from the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey - found that a large number of the events that send nursing home residents to the emergency department (ED) are preventable. The report identified conditions and resident characteristics that nursing homes and policymakers might consider targeting to reduce preventable ED visits.

According to the report, 8 percent of U.S. nursing home residents had an ED visit in the past 90 days. Of those residents, 40 percent had potentially preventable ED visits. The number one potentially preventable reason that nursing home residents visited the ED? Injuries from falls.

Here's the breakdown of conditions that accounted for potentially preventable ED visits:

36%: Injuries from falls

19%: Heart conditions

12%: Pneumonia

The remaining 33% was labeled "other conditions" and includes fever, mental status changes, gastrointestinal bleeding, urinary tract infections, metabolic disturbances and skin diseases.

Nursing home residents with a potentially preventable ED visit also tended to have a shorter length of stay at the nursing home and were taking more medications.

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