Jennifer Young, Jessica den Herder, Tammie Michael, Diana P Bernardez, Zachary Carson, Mukaila Raji, Yong Fang Kuo
{"title":"Improving Hurricane Preparedness Among Galveston County Older Adults: Description of a Successful Community-Based Quality Improvement Model.","authors":"Jennifer Young, Jessica den Herder, Tammie Michael, Diana P Bernardez, Zachary Carson, Mukaila Raji, Yong Fang Kuo","doi":"10.1177/23337214241278550","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Older adults are at high risk of experiencing injury, exacerbations of their chronic conditions, and death when evacuations are ordered because of hurricanes or natural disasters. The Homebound seniors residing in Galveston County are at a particularly high risk of morbidity and mortality during evacuations for hurricanes. This paper described the impact of a quality improvement intervention designed and implemented by nurse practitioners during the 2022 and 2023 hurricane season. The education program aimed at increasing the hurricane preparedness of the home-bound patients. Of these patients, 190 returned pre and post surveys. Interventions showed a 43% increase in patients having an evacuation plan in the event of a hurricane, 633% increase in STEAR registration, 16% increase in patients having access to emergency supplies, and 34% increase in patients having an emergency contact list with up-to-date medication list. All improvements on hurricane preparedness items were significant (<i>p</i> < .0001) except for the need for assistance in case of an evacuation. Our findings suggest a need for continuous hurricane preparedness education in the community to ensure safe evacuation, improve hurricane preparation, and increase the number of seniors who registered with the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry.</p>","PeriodicalId":52146,"journal":{"name":"Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11418349/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23337214241278550","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Older adults are at high risk of experiencing injury, exacerbations of their chronic conditions, and death when evacuations are ordered because of hurricanes or natural disasters. The Homebound seniors residing in Galveston County are at a particularly high risk of morbidity and mortality during evacuations for hurricanes. This paper described the impact of a quality improvement intervention designed and implemented by nurse practitioners during the 2022 and 2023 hurricane season. The education program aimed at increasing the hurricane preparedness of the home-bound patients. Of these patients, 190 returned pre and post surveys. Interventions showed a 43% increase in patients having an evacuation plan in the event of a hurricane, 633% increase in STEAR registration, 16% increase in patients having access to emergency supplies, and 34% increase in patients having an emergency contact list with up-to-date medication list. All improvements on hurricane preparedness items were significant (p < .0001) except for the need for assistance in case of an evacuation. Our findings suggest a need for continuous hurricane preparedness education in the community to ensure safe evacuation, improve hurricane preparation, and increase the number of seniors who registered with the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry.
期刊介绍:
Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine (GGM) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed open access journal where scholars from a variety of disciplines present their work focusing on the psychological, behavioral, social, and biological aspects of aging, and public health services and research related to aging. The journal addresses a wide variety of topics related to health services research in gerontology and geriatrics. GGM seeks to be one of the world’s premier Open Access outlets for gerontological academic research. As such, GGM does not limit content due to page budgets or thematic significance. Papers will be subjected to rigorous peer review but will be selected solely on the basis of whether the research is sound and deserves publication. By virtue of not restricting papers to a narrow discipline, GGM facilitates the discovery of the connections between papers.