The Association Between Nursing Home Resident Characteristics and Transfers to the Emergency Department: A Population-Level Retrospective Cohort Study

Nursing Home (NH) residents require complete or extensive support, including 24-hour nursing and personal care. LTC residents contribute a greater number of emergency department (ED) visits when compared to community-dwelling older adults. Little is known about which resident-level characteristics at admission are predictive of ED transfers from NH. We set out to identify which admission characteristics are associated with ED transfers, potentially preventable ED transfers, and low-acuity ED transfers in Ontario, Canada.