Older Patients' Expectations of a 'Senior-Friendly' Hospital

With the ageing of populations around the world, hospitals seeking to maximise the satisfactionof their patients will need to ensure their services meet the expectations of the growing segmentof older patients. Four focus groups were conducted in Perth, Western Australia, to explore thoseaspects of a hospital stay that are considered to be most important to older patients. The focusgroup participants nominated nursing care, meals, admission procedures, communicationprocesses and physical facilities as those aspects of hospital service that are of particularimportance to older patients. They noted that these issues are likely to be relevant to somedegree to all patients but that, due to the needs of older patients, they become especially criticalin later years. These findings have similarities with those generated by other studies but aremore extensive than described elsewhere and thus provide more detailed guidance for hospitalmanagers seeking to ensure their facilities are senior-friendly.