ACE team

University Hospital's ACE Team, Acute Care for the Elderly, is implemented through SUNY Upstate's Geriatrics Program in the Department of Medicine. It is a multi-disciplinary in-patient consult team. This team is comprised of a geriatrician, geriatric nurse practitioner and physician assistant, a social worker and pharmacy staff member who will perform initial consults on the patient and contact the patient's primary medical team with suggestions on patient care.

According to Sharon A. Brangman, MD, the ACE team will provide mandatory consults on University Hospital patients aged 75 years or older who have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, including all dementias, and/or who are admitted from a nursing home. "The goal is to intervene and improve patient care as soon as the patient is admitted," said Dr. Brangman, division chief of geriatric medicine at University Hospital who will direct the team. "We also hope to reduce the patient's length of hospital stay and the decline of physical function that sometimes happens when older patients are admitted to the hospital."

The ACE team is based on a model that has been used in other hospitals across the country for a number of years, usually with a designated unit for geriatric patients.

"We hope to have a special ACE unit in the future with the completion of the vertical expansion," said Dr. Brangman. "In the meantime, the ACE Team will be a mobile team that will evaluate patients on all medical and surgical floors except the surgical acre units."

Members of the ACE team include:

• Geriatrician
• Physician Assistant
• Nurse Practitioner
• Fellow
• Pharmacist
• Social Worker