Northwell Health certified for geriatric emergency care 

Northwell Health said Tuesday its 17 emergency departments across Long Island, New York City and Westchester County have earned geriatric emergency department accreditation from the American College of Emergency Physicians. 

The Northwell accreditations took place from March to this month.

The New Hyde Park-based health system said the voluntary geriatric accreditation provides specific criteria and goals for emergency clinicians and administrators. 

The accreditation recommends more than two dozen best practices for geriatric care. Those include: geriatric-friendly equipment availability and policies regarding routine assessments for delirium, dementia or fall risk.

The Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan also has earned the geriatric accreditation, according to Irving, Texas-based American College of Emergency Physicians, a professional organization of emergency medicine physicians.

New York State is home to the third-largest elderly population in the country, according to the New York Academy of Medicine. Over the next decade adults 65 and older are expected to make up 20 percent of the U.S. population. Across Northwell Health, emergency departments report more than 800,000 visits annually, nearly 30 percent of them  patients 65 and older.

Northwell Health, with 70,000 employees, is the largest private employer in the state.