cne
ARTICLE
HOW TO OBTAIN CONTACT HOURS BY READING THIS ARTICLE
Instructions
1.2 contact hours will be awarded by Villanova University College of Nurs-
ing upon successful completion of this activity. A contact hour is a unit of
measurement that denotes 60 minutes of an organized learning activity. This
is a learner-based activity. Villanova University College of Nursing does not
require submission of your answers to the quiz. A contact hour certificate
will be awarded once you register, pay the registration fee, and complete the
evaluation form online at https://villanova.gosignmeup.com/dev_students.
asp?action=browse&main=Nursing+Journals&misc=564. To obtain contact
hours you must:
1. Read the article, “A New Tool to Assess Risk of Wandering in Hospitalized
Patients” found on pages 28-33, carefully noting any tables and other
illustrative materials that are included to enhance your knowledge and
understanding of the content. Be sure to keep track of the amount of time
(number of minutes) you spend reading the article and completing the
quiz.
2. Read and answer each question on the quiz. After completing all of the
questions, compare your answers to those provided within this issue. If
you have incorrect answers, return to the article for further study.
3. Go to the Villanova website listed above to register for contact hour credit.
You will be asked to provide your name; contact information; and a VISA,
MasterCard, or Discover card number for payment of the $20.00 fee. Once
you complete the online evaluation, a certificate will be automatically
generated.
This activity is valid for continuing education credit until February 29, 2016.
Contact Hours
This activity is co-provided by Villanova University College of Nursing and
SLACK Incorporated.
Villanova University College of Nursing is accredited as a provider of continu-
ing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Com-
mission on Accreditation.
Activity Objectives
1. Identify at-risk factors to prevent wandering of hospitalized patients.
2. Review interventions to reduce risk for wandering in at-risk hospitalized
patients.
Disclosure Statement
Neither the planners nor the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose.
Heena S. Sheth, MD, MPH; Diane Krueger, MSN, RN-BC; Susan Bourdon, RN;
and Robert M. Palmer, MD, MPH
28
ABSTRACT
This article describes the development and implementation of a
wandering screening and intervention program based on iden-
tifying hospitalized patients with impaired cognition and mobil-
ity. A wandering screening tool developed by a multidisciplinary
team was linked to appropriate levels of interventions available
in the electronic health record. Advanced practice nurses (APNs)
confirmed the accuracy of screening and interventions by bedside
nurses for all patients who screened positive. Of 1,528 patients
hospitalized during a 3-week period, 48 (3.1%) screened posi-
tive for wandering. At-risk patients were older (age ≥65) (66.7%),
those admitted to surgical units (41.7%), Caucasian (89.6%), and
men (58.3%). Thirteen (27.1%) had dementia and 45 (93.8%) had
impaired cognition. Of those patients who screened positive for
wandering, the APNs agreed with the bedside nurses’ assess-
ment in 79.2% of cases (38/48) about wandering risk and 89.5%
(34/38 true positives) for the interventions. A two-item wandering
screening tool and intervention was feasible for use by bedside
nurses. Further studies are needed to determine whether this tool
is effective in preventing wandering. [Journal of Gerontological
Nursing, 40(3), 28-33.]
W
andering is a behavioral disorder that is fre-
quently encountered in patients with demen-
tia, other forms of cognitive impairment, and
psychiatric syndromes and is defined as the tendency to
exhibit persistent walking, elopement behavior, spatial dis-
orientation, or a combination of these problems (Algase,
Beattie, Bogue, & Yao, 2001). The Alzheimer’s Association
(n.d.) estimates that 60% of patients with dementia will
demonstrate wandering behavior at some point. These pa-
tients tend to wander when they are disoriented, restless,
anxious, agitated, trying to find items or places, or feel the
need to complete specific tasks (Algase, 1999).
Copyright © SLACK Incorporated

When cognitively impaired pa-
tients are hospitalized, their risk of
wandering increases because of in-
teracting factors such as the unfamil-
iar environment, medication effects,
presence of acute illness, delirium,
psychological stress, and baseline
impaired cognitive function (Rowe,
2008). The risk of wandering from
hospitals is often not recognized be-
cause risk factors in acute care set-
tings differ from those in long-term
care settings. For example, in an acute
care setting, the risk of wandering is
more likely to be associated with de-
lirium (a common hospital-acquired
condition [Inouye, 2006]) in mobile
patients (Borbasi, Jones, Lockwood,
& Emden, 2006; Godbolt et al.,
2004), which also increases the wan-
dering risk associated with dementia
or mild cognitive impairment.
Acute care hospitals are less like-
ly to have specific safety processes
in place, such as limited egress and
electronic alarm monitoring found
in many nursing home facilities with
a dementia unit (Silverstein, Flaherty,
& Tobin, 2006; U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs, 2010). Potentially,
wandering and the related adverse
outcomes could be prevented through
Journal of Gerontological Nursing • Vol. 40, No. 3, 2014
cne
ARTICLE
and medical patients. The team was led
by physicians and hospital administra-
tors and included advanced practice
nurses (APNs), RNs, and other health
care professionals with expertise in risk
management, environmental services,
security, safety, and quality assurance.
The administrative leadership enabled
the team to develop a screening tool
and interventions and to implement
them throughout the hospital. The ini-
tiative was approved by the hospital’s
quality council as a quality improve-
ment project.
©2014 Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images
Developing the Screening Tool and
Interventions
After reviewing the current lit-
erature concerning wandering pa-
tients, the multidisciplinary team
met to discuss which patients should
be screened; when screening should
take place; who should perform
a strategy of identifying hospitalized screening; what screening questions
patients at risk, modifying the en- would be essential but not burden-
vironmental triggers for these risks, some to the screening process; who
and implementing nursing strategies should train the screeners; what in-
and standardized protocols to initiate terventions should be initiated for
a search process if a patient were to patients at risk; and how the screen-
wander from the hospital. ing information and interventions
Validated tools to screen indi- should be incorporated into current
viduals for the risk of wandering are hospital practices.
available for use in long-term care The team determined that all
settings such as the Algase Wander- patients older than 18 should be
ing Scale (AWS; Algase et al., 2001), screened for wandering at the time
a 39-item instrument, and the revised of admission or transfer to a medical,
AWS, a 59-item instrument that surgical, trauma, or intensive care
is impractical for use in acute care unit. They should be screened by a
(Song et al., 2003). To our knowl- bedside nurse after the nurse reviews
edge, there is no validated screening the patient’s chart and talks with the
tool to assess the risk of wandering patient and family. Two questions
from acute care hospital units. should be answered by the nurse: (a)
The purpose of this article is to de- Are there any concerns that the pa-
scribe the development of a screen- tient will wander at the current time?
ing instrument designed to identify and (b) Does the patient mobilize
hospitalized patients at risk of wan- independently or with minimal as-
dering and to inform bedside nurses sistance AND exhibit cognitive im-
of interventions to reduce the risk of pairment or impaired judgment? If
wandering from the nursing unit. the answer to either question is yes,
the patient should be considered at
METHOD risk for wandering.
In 2010, a multidisciplinary team For at-risk patients, the team de-
was established at a tertiary care teach- veloped a list of nine required in-
ing hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylva- terventions and seven additional
nia, with 801 licensed beds for surgical interventions. The hospital has a
29
 cne
ARTICLE

sophisticated system for electronic

Wandering Risk health records (EHRs), allowing the
Assessment and screening instrument and interven-
Intervention Form tions to be linked to the system.
The required list of interventions
for at-risk patients consisted of the
Wandering Risk Screening
1) Are there any concerns the patient will wander  Yes  No
following:
currently? l Obtain the patient’s photo-
2) Does the patient mobilize independently or with minimal assistance AND exhibit  Yes  No
cognitive impairment or impaired judgment? graph to post outside the patient’s
room and make the photograph
If the answer is "yes" to either question, the patient is determined to be at risk, and the
appropriate interventions implemented. accessible via the EHR system if the
Risk Assessment: Date/time patient’s location cannot be deter-
 Patient is at mined quickly by nurses.
risk to wander
 Patient is NOT at Nurse initials l Dress the at-risk patient in a
risk to wander bright green hospital gown to serve
Goal:  Provide safe environment for patient as a quick visual cue to staff.
at risk for wandering l Update the EHR system’s
Interventions to Stop/Prevent voice-activated documentation pro-
Wandering
Date/time Additional comments if Date Initials gram (Voice Care®) to indicate that
applicable of
Required Interventions: Initials resolution/no the patient is at risk for wandering.
longer needed l Discuss the patient’s risk and

 Obtain a picture of the patient the interventions to prevent wan-

 Place patient in colored
gown
dering with the patient and family
 Update "Voice Care" to identify patient as members.
a wander risk
 Update IPOC in the Electronic Health l Consult with an expert APN
Record-Document
"See Wandering Risk Assessment and in mental health or geriatrics about

Intervention Form"
Discuss wandering risk with patient
the patient’s risk and interventions.
and family l Begin hourly rounds for the
 Consult APN:
Mental Health
patient.
Geriatric l Set up an appropriate bed

 Implement hourly rounding alarm system.

 Bed alarm as appropriate l When the patient must go to
 Communicate wander risk to other
departments when
another hospital department for
patient leaving unit for testing or other testing or other activities, notify the
activities
 Anti-wandering device on N/A N/A N/A N/A department that the patient is at risk
patient
Additional
for wandering.
Interventions: l Place an anti-wandering device
Patient room assignment to enable

visibility, frequent (alarm activated by movement) on
monitoring, and a calm
environment
the patient.
 Patient clothing in a secure place that is The additional interventions to
"out of mind/out
of sight" for the patient consider included the following:
 Offer diversional activities l Assign a room that provides a
 Review of scheduled and PRN
medications calm environment and enables vis-
 Restraints
ibility and frequent monitoring.
 Sitter- if other interventions ineffective to
prevent wandering l Store the patient’s clothing in
 Other
a secure place that is inaccessible to
Codes: N/A=Not
the patient.
applicable
R=Resolved Initials Signature Initials Signature l Offer diversion activities.

*1ASM* l Review all medications and

make changes if necessary.

l Use restraints.
1ASM Form ID: SYS- Last Revision Date:
0025 3/19/2012 l Place a sitter in the patient’s

room.
l Consider other individualized
Figure. Form used to screen for risk of wandering. interventions.

30 Copyright © SLACK Incorporated


The development and evaluation
of the wandering screen and associ-
ated interventions was part of a larg-
er system-wide process (Condition
L [lost]) that uses search and rescue
techniques and alerts staff to follow
specific, strategically defined roles
and protocols.
Training of bedside nurses in-
volved a comparison of the expert
APN’s risk assessment to the nurse’s
screening assessment and interven-
tions using the wandering tool.
Implementing the Screening Tool
and Interventions
The Wandering Risk Assessment
and Intervention Form (Figure) was
created and incorporated in the EHR
system. Specific interventions to be
considered for patients screening pos-
itive were also included in the EHR.
Without a validated tool (gold
standard) for determining a patient’s
risk for wandering from an acute
care hospital, we defined the criteri-
on standard as the expert opinion of
the two APNs. The APNs also pro-
vided feedback to the bedside nurse
regarding the screening accuracy
and the interventions provided to
patients. Because the bedside nurses
were initially uncertain about im-
plementing the program, the APNs
who checked their work found many
false-positive screening results. The
APNs subsequently concentrated
their efforts on educating bedside
nurses to screen more accurately and
ensuring the appropriate choice and
implementation of interventions.
APN Review of Patients With
Positive Wandering Screening
After pilot-testing the program,
the bedside nurses were asked to
screen a consecutive series of adult
patients who were admitted or trans-
ferred to a medical, surgical, trauma,
or intensive care unit of the hospital
during a 3-week period in January
and February 2010. For each patient,
the EHR system automatically dis-
played the Wandering Risk Assess-
ment and Intervention Form to be
Journal of Gerontological Nursing • Vol. 40, No. 3, 2014
cne
ARTICLE
TABLE
CHARACTERISTICS OF PATIENTS (N = 48) FOUND TO BE AT
INCREASED RISK OF WANDERING
Characteristic
Sociodemographic
Age ≥65a
Women/men
Caucasian/African American/Unknown
Hospital unit in which assessment was completed
Surgical
Medical
Trauma
Intensive care
Clinical
Impaired cognitionb
Dementia c
a
Mean age = 71.3, range = 22 to 92 years.
b
Defined as confusion due to dementia or delirium.
c
Diagnosis at time of admission.
completed, and the bedside nurse
on duty reviewed the patient chart,
talked with the patient and family
members, and completed the form.
The EHR system automatically gen-
erated a daily list of patients who
screened positive for wandering. For
each at-risk patient on the list, an
APN independently reviewed the
chart, and if necessary, talked to the
bedside nurse, patient, and family.
If the patient screened positive for
risk of wandering, the APN extracted
information from the chart regarding
the patient’s age, gender, and race/
ethnicity; the hospital unit in which
the assessment was completed; and
the presence or absence of dementia
or impaired cognition. APNs made
implicit judgments about accuracy
of the screening and the appropriate-
ness of the interventions implement-
ed by bedside nurses.
Descriptive statistics were used
to report the sociodemographic and
clinical characteristics of patients. The
proportion of cases in which the bed-
side nurse and APN agreed regarding
patient risk and about what interven-
n (%)
32 (66.7)
20 (41.7)/28 (58.3)
43 (89.6)/4 (8.3)/1 (2.1)
20 (41.7)
19 (39.6)
6 (12.5)
3 (6.3)
45 (93.8)
13 (27.1)
tion strategies should be implemented
are reported. The extent of agreement
between bedside nurses and APNs
was considered to be an indication of
how effective the APNs were in edu-
cating the bedside nurses.
RESULTS
During the 3 weeks of the study,
bedside nurses screened 1,528 pa-
tients. Of these patients, 48 (3.1%)
screened positive by the bedside
nurse for wandering risk. Most at-
risk patients were older (66.7%, age
≥65 [mean age = 71.3, range = 22 to
92 years]), had been screened in sur-
gical units (41.7%), and were Cauca-
sian (89.6%) men (58.3%). Among
at-risk patients, 13 (27.1%) had de-
mentia and 45 (93.8%) had impaired
cognition (Table).
The bedside nurses and APNs
agreed regarding risk of wandering
in 38 (79.2%) of 48 patients who
screened positive and about the ap-
propriateness of interventions for
34 (89.5%) of these 38 patients. The
APNs believed that two patients re-
quired psychiatric consultations, one
31
 cne
ARTICLE

lists of required and optional inter-

ventions that nurses can institute to
KEYPOINTS prevent wandering of at-risk patients.
Sheth, H.S., Krueger, D., Bourdon, S., & Palmer, R.M. (2014). A New Tool to Assess Risk of
Wandering in Hospitalized Patients. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 40(3), 28-33.
The new screening tool and interven-
tions are connected with the EHR

1 A new screening tool to identify hospitalized patients at risk for

wandering was developed by a multidisciplinary team.
system, which both prompts and doc-
uments their use. The entire initiative
to screen for and prevent wandering
2 The Wandering Risk Assessment and Intervention Form is a two-
question, electronic health record–based screening tool based on
cognitive impairment and mobility that bedside nurses can ad-
is consistent with a directive from the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
minister quickly and easily to hospitalized patients. (2010).
Consistent with published rec-

3 The program offers nine interventions along with seven additional

interventions that can be instituted for at-risk patients.
4 Advanced practice nurses were consulted regarding the accuracy
of screening and the appropriateness of the interventions imple-
mented by bedside nurses, with the majority agreeing with the
bedside nurses’ assessments.
required psychiatric consultation
and allocation of a room closer to the
nursing station, and one required sit-
ter supervision. Although 38 patients
were classified by both the bedside
nurses and APNs as at-risk at the
time of admission, 2 (5.3%) patients
were determined by the APNs to be
no longer at risk at the time of hospi-
tal discharge or transfer.
Given the large number of ad-
missions during the 3-week study
period, it was impractical for the
APNs to review data for patients
who screened negative for the risk of
wandering. However, there were no
reported episodes of these patients
wandering during their hospitaliza-
tion.
DISCUSSION
A new screening tool to identify
hospitalized patients at risk for wan-
dering was developed by a multidis-
ciplinary team and implemented in
a single hospital by bedside nurses
with training by APNs. Bedside
nurse documentation of wandering
risk improved after feedback from
the APNs, and the tool was suc-
cessfully implemented throughout
the hospital using an EHR. To our
knowledge, this is the first report of
an EHR wandering screening tool to
be used by bedside nurses through-
out a hospital. A convenience sample
of patients, who screened positive
for wandering, was further assessed
by APNs for accuracy and interven-
tions implemented by the bedside
nurses. The results suggest that the
bedside nurses’ assessment of pa-
tients at risk is generally accurate.
The APN offered feedback to the
bedside nurses that appears to be ef-
fective in helping them improve their
ability to screen patients and imple-
ment interventions designed to pre-
vent wandering by at-risk patients.
Tools that are currently avail-
able to assess the risk that patients
will wander from inpatient facilities
(Algase et al., 2001; Song et al., 2003)
and interventions that are commonly
used to prevent patients from wan-
dering (Altus, Mathews, Xaverius,
Engelman, & Nolan, 2000; Hughes
& Louw, 2002; McShane et al., 1998;
Robinson et al., 2007; Rowe & Ben-
nett, 2003; U.S. Department of Vet-
erans Affairs, 2010) are primarily
designed for long-term care facilities
and are generally impractical for use
in hospital settings. Therefore, in ad-
dition to developing a two-question
screening tool that bedside nurses
can administer quickly and easily to
hospitalized patients, we developed
ommendations (Petonito et al., 2013;
Robinson et al., 2007; Rowe & Ben-
nett, 2003), our wandering risk assess-
ment incorporates practical interven-
tions, such as implementing hourly
rounds. Direct supervision by a sitter
might be a consideration in select cas-
es but is impractical for most hospi-
tals with limited resources. Similarly,
assigning a room closer to a nursing
station can be considered but is not
always possible. Physical restraints
are not routinely recommended, be-
cause they may worsen a patient’s
level of agitation and thereby place
the patient at risk of injury or distress.
Delirium prevention and manage-
ment can often be accomplished by
reducing risk factors such as chang-
ing medications or by increasing the
hydration and mobility of the patient
(Inouye, 2006). Although environ-
mentally based interventions—such
as multisensory stimulation (e.g.,
therapeutic music, aromatherapy,
bright light therapy), stress reduc-
tion (e.g., exercises), and elimination
of environmental triggers of agitation
(e.g., excess noise)—are reported to
be effective in preventing wandering
from long-term care facilities (Rob-
inson et al., 2007), their usefulness in
preventing wandering from acute care
settings is unknown. Diversionary ac-
tivities provide a component of multi-
sensory intervention and are practical
to implement in hospitals; therefore,
they were included in our list of addi-
tional interventions to be considered
in select cases. Further studies are
needed to determine whether these
activities actually reduce the risk of
wandering from hospitals.

32 Copyright © SLACK Incorporated


LIMITATIONS
Our initiative has several limita-
tions that deserve mention. First,
because there are no published crite-
ria for identifying patients at risk of
wandering, we considered the judg-
ment of our APNs to be the criterion
standard. The judgment of APNs
may vary from site to site, but we be-
lieve this variation could be reduced
through training programs such as
Nurses Improving Care for Health-
System Elders (NICHE; Hartford
Institute for Geriatric Nursing, n.d.).
Second, a lesson that we learned in
pilot-testing our screening tool was
that nurses needed more bedside
training in the assessment of cogni-
tion (delirium and dementia) and
mobility (transfers and gait assess-
ments). Hospitals that lack APNs
who are able to provide training may
wish to consider NICHE training
for their geriatric resource nurses.
Third, our APNs reviewed the ac-
curacy of screening only in the 3.1%
of cases in which patients screened
positive for the risk of wandering
from a single hospital. Future stud-
ies should examine the predictive ac-
curacy of the screening tool in other
hospitals and subgroups of patients.
Fourth, although our hospital had
no incident of a patient wandering
during the first year in which our
screening tool and interventions
were implemented, only a larger and
longer-term study can determine the
effectiveness of the screening tool
and interventions.
IMPLICATIONS AND
CONCLUSION
The Wandering Risk Assessment
and Intervention Form is a two-
question, EHR-based screening tool
that bedside nurses can administer
quickly and easily to hospitalized
patients. The program also offers
EHR-based lists of interventions
that bedside nurses can institute for
at-risk patients. When we tested
these initiatives in a consecutive se-
ries of 1,528 patients admitted to the
medical, surgical, trauma, and in-
Journal of Gerontological Nursing • Vol. 40, No. 3, 2014
cne
ARTICLE
tensive care units at a large hospital,
the results suggested that they were
helpful in identifying and potential-
ly preventing at-risk patients from
wandering. The results also suggest-
ed that APNs were effective in im-
proving the ability of bedside nurses
to assess and manage patients at risk
for wandering.
REFERENCES
Algase, D.L. (1999). Wandering: A dementia-
compromised behavior. Journal of Geronto-
logical Nursing, 25(9), 10-16.
Algase, D.L., Beattie, E.R., Bogue, E.L., & Yao,
L. (2001). The Algase Wandering Scale: Ini-
tial psychometrics of a new caregiver report-
ing tool. American Journal of Alzheimer’s
Disease and Other Dementias, 16, 141-152.
Altus, D.E., Mathews, R.M., Xaverius, P.K., En-
gelman, K.K., & Nolan, B.A.D. (2000). Eval-
uating an electronic monitoring system for
people who wander. American Journal of Al-
zheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, 15,
121-125. doi:10.1177/153331750001500201
Alzheimer’s Association. (n.d.). Wandering and
getting lost. Retrieved from http://www.alz.
org/care/alzheimers-dementia-wandering.
asp
Borbasi, S., Jones, J., Lockwood, C., & Emden,
C. (2006.) Health professionals’ perspectives
of providing care to people with dementia in
the acute care setting: Toward better practice.
Geriatric Nursing, 27, 300-308.
Godbolt, A.K., Cipolotti, L., Watt, H., Fox,
N.C., Janssen, J.C., & Rossor, M.N. (2004).
The natural history of Alzheimer disease: A
longitudinal presymptomatic and symptom-
atic study of a familial cohort. Archives of
Neurology, 61, 1743-1748.
Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing. (n.d.).
Nurses Improving Care for HealthSystem
Elders (NICHE). Retrieved from http://
www.hartfordign.org/practice/niche
Hughes, J.C., & Louw, S.J. (2002). Electronic
tagging of people with dementia who wan-
der. BMJ, 325, 847-848.
Inouye, S.K. (2006). Delirium in older persons.
New England Journal of Medicine, 354,
1157-1165.
McShane, R., Gedling, K., Kenward, B., Ken-
ward, R., Hope, T., & Jacoby, R. (1998). The
feasibility of electronic tracking devices in
dementia: A telephone survey and case series.
International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry,
13, 556-563.
Petonito, G., Muschert, G.W., Carr, D.C.,
Kinney, J.M., Robbins, E.J., & Brown. J.S.
(2013). Programs to locate missing and criti-
cally wandering elders: A critical review and
a call for multiphasic evaluation. The Ger-
ontologist, 53, 17-25. doi:10.1093/geront/
gns060
Robinson, L., Hutchings, D., Dickinson, H.O.,
Corner, L., Beyer, F., Finch, T.,…Bond, J.
(2007). Effectiveness and acceptability of
non-pharmacological interventions to reduce
wandering in dementia: A systematic review.
International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry,
22, 9-22.
Rowe, M. (2008). Wandering in hospitalized
older adults: Identifying risk is the first step
in this approach to preventing wandering
in patients with dementia. American Jour-
nal of Nursing, 108, 62-70. doi:10.1097/01.
NAJ.0000336968.32462.c9
Rowe, M.A., & Bennett, V. (2003). A look at
deaths occurring in persons with dementia
lost in the community. American Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias,
18, 343-348.
Silverstein, N.M., Flaherty, G., & Tobin, T.S.
(2006). Dementia and wandering behavior:
Concern for the lost elder. New York, NY:
Springer.
Song, J.A., Algase, D.L., Beattie, E.R., Milke,
D.L., Duffield, C., & Cowan, B. (2003).
Comparison of U.S., Canadian, and Austra-
lian participants’ performance on the Algase
Wandering Scale-Version 2 (AWS-V2). Re-
search and Theory for Nursing Practice, 17,
241-256.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2010).
Management of wandering and missing pa-
tients. Retrieved from http://www.va.gov/
vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_
ID=2340
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Sheth is Research Assistant Profes-
sor, Division of Quality and Safety, De-
partment of Medicine, School of Medicine,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania; Ms. Krueger is Program-
matic Nurse Specialist, Medicine and Ge-
riatrics, and Ms. Bourdon is Programmatic
Nurse Specialist, Medicine and Psychiatry,
Department of Medicine, University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania; and Dr. Palmer is John
Franklin Chair of Geriatrics, Department
of Internal Medicine, Eastern Virginia
Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia.
The authors have disclosed no potential
conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
The authors thank Mary George, RN,
MSN, CEN, for helping create and format
the Wandering Risk Assessment and Inter-
vention Form.
Address correspondence to Heena S.
Sheth, MD, MPH, Research Assistant
Professor, Division of Quality and Safety,
Department of Medicine, University
of Pittsburgh, 3504 Fifth Avenue, Suite
200, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; e-mail:
hss2@pitt.edu.
Received: November 4, 2012
Accepted: December 30, 2013
Posted: February 5, 2014
doi:10.3928/00989134-20140128-06
33
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.