Assessing Hospitals in Isfahan,Iran Based on the World Health Organization's age-friendly Criteria :A Mixed Method Study

Objectives The rapid growth of the elderly population requires the design of age-friendly healthcare systems to respond to the complex needs of the elderly. This study aims to assess the hospitals in Isfahan, Iran based on the age-friendly primary health care centers criteria and identify challenges. Methods & Materials This cross-sequential study was conducted in two phases in 2020-2021. First, using the checklist of Ahmadi et al.' study, the teaching hospitals in Isfahan were assessed based on the age-friendly primary health care centers criteria. The checklists were completed by observation and based on the opinions of the experts. Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 26 using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation test. Qualitative data were collected through a semi-structured interview and were analyzed using Conventional content analysis method. Results Most of the hospitals were in good conditions in terms of physical environment, sanitary facilities, and signboards. The lowest scores were related to the areas of admission and payment, appointments, accessibility, and inpatient services. The mean age-friendly score of hospitals was 51.7 out of 100. There was no significant relationship between the characteristics of hospitals (type of ownership, type of activity, specialty, number of beds, bed occupancy rate, degree of accreditation, and manager's study field) and their age-friendly scores. We identified 9 themes and 27 sub-themes related to challenges of being age-friendly in the hospitals. Conclusion The hospitals in Isfahan have many shortcomings in being age-friendly. Promoting the expertise of geriatric medicine and geriatric nursing, designing a special queuing system for the elderly, considering a special administrator for the elderly in different departments, reducing the costs of treatment for the elderly, promoting consultation/examination/treatment/follow-up programs for the elderly with an emphasis on upstream documents and cooperation between different departments, empowering employees, upgrading physical infrastructure can help solve existing challenges.