Maleny nurse helps to change much-needed care for older Australians
When Andrea Taylor began her nursing career in the ACT, she had no idea it would lead her to national recognition for transforming the care of older Australians.
After moving to Queensland and joining Queensland Health in 2008, Andrea’s career took a defining turn — one that would eventually reshape how emergency departments respond to frailty and complexity in older people.
With a nursing career spanning more than 28 years, the Maleny-based nurse was recognised as a finalist for the 2025 Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers — a prestigious national honour recognising innovation and leadership in Australian nursing.
Listening to Older People
The model Andrea pioneered is called GEDI, or the Geriatric Emergency Department Intervention, and it’s been quietly revolutionising emergency care for some of our most vulnerable patients.
“The idea for GEDI was born out of frustration,” Andrea explains.
“I was working in the community and saw older people coming back and forth to hospital, struggling through a system that wasn’t designed with their needs in mind.
“It was like they were invisible — there was limited recognition of how frailty, cognitive impairment, and functional decline affected the way care needed to be delivered to meet the needs of older adults.”
Andrea began working in the emergency department at Nambour General Hospital — a role that challenged her to develop a new model of care tailored to older adults, and offered a rare opportunity to bring her vision to life.
“The ED wasn’t built for older adults — it’s fast-paced, geared toward acute presentations like trauma and cardiac events. But our older patients were falling through the cracks. I wanted to create something that gave them a voice, that slowed things down enough to get care right the first time.”
A Model with Impact
GEDI was that something.
The model embeds specialist nurses with expertise in gerontology into emergency departments, working alongside doctors and staff to assess frailty, prevent unnecessary admissions, and coordinate timely care. It’s clinically effective, cost-effective, and most importantly, deeply human.
Since its beginnings in 2013, GEDI has spread to 25 Queensland hospital emergency departments, supported by a comprehensive implementation toolkit — including guides and assessment tools to support comprehensive geriatric assessment and guide care — and by shared learnings from Andrea’s journey.
Her role in leading this work has now earned national attention.
“Being recognised as a Trailblazer means a lot,” she says.
“Not just to me, but to every older person whose experience has inspired this. It’s a privilege to work on solutions that honour their needs and stories.”
Looking Ahead
Andrea’s work continues at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital — now focused on improving surgical outcomes for older adults through innovative models of nursing care — but GEDI remains her proudest achievement.
“We made the invisible visible.”
