Acute geriatric care is usually provided within a hospital setting. These facilities are becoming increasingly important as they offer enormous benefits to older people who are at the crossroads between independence and the need for care. The good news is that 90.5% of patients are able to return to their familiar surroundings after treatment. This is a great success, as patients usually come to acute geriatric care due to an acute event and are at risk of losing their independence and thus ending up in a nursing home. Acute geriatric care aims to prevent the loss of independence by strengthening patients.
Acute geriatric care is usually provided in a hospital setting. These facilities are becoming increasingly important as they offer enormous benefits to older people who are at the crossroads between independence and the need for care. The good news is that 90.5% of patients are able to return to their familiar surroundings after treatment. This is a great success, as patients usually come to acute geriatric care due to an acute event and are at risk of losing their independence and thus ending up in a nursing home. Acute geriatric care aims to prevent the loss of independence by strengthening patients. The study was published by the Austrian Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology (ÖGGG), the professional association for geriatric medicine in Austria, and the HEALTH Institute at JOANNEUM RESEARCH. All evaluations refer to inpatient cases from participating Austrian acute geriatric wards that were uploaded to the JOANNEUM RESEARCH benchmarking system. This has been in operation since 2008. It was developed in cooperation with the QiGG association (Quality in Geriatrics and Gerontology).
Facts from the acute geriatric care report
- Almost twice as many women as men are admitted to acute geriatric care.
- The most common reasons for admission for both women and men are injuries, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes.
- In second place for women are diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue.
- In second place for men are diseases of the circulatory system.
- On average, both women and men have 7.6 functional impairments.
- Swallowing disorders are twice as common in men as in women in acute geriatric care.
- Swallowing disorders are twice as common in men as in women in acute geriatric care. Patients usually stay in acute geriatric care for between 15 and 21 days.
- Approximately 41% of patients who were largely dependent on care according to the Barthel Index were only in need of assistance after their stay in acute geriatric care.
- 54% who, according to the Esslingen transfer scale, required assistance to transfer between bed and chair no longer needed help after their stay in acute geriatric care.
20 years of innovation in quality assurance
The year 2025 marks a special milestone: the Austrian quality assurance initiative QiGG and the benchmarking documentation system BARS are celebrating their 20th anniversary and have been contributing to the continuous improvement and objective evaluation of the quality of care ever since.
Trends and future developments
The report also highlights innovative approaches: the data collected will be used in future to develop AI models that can predict risk- or care-related events at an early stage. Initial models and application examples are already in development.
Acute Geriatric Care Report 2024
The complete Acute Geriatric Care Report 2024 is available here.
