To assess quality-of-care processes and to examine whether care processes are associated with short-term postdischarge outcomes in older vulnerable hospitalized patients.Retrospective study.Forty-nine Geriatric Assessment Units.Patients aged 65 and older who were admitted to a Geriatric Assessment Unit for a fall with trauma.Three care processes (comprehensiveness, informational continuity, patient-centered care) assessed through chart audit; three-month postdischarge outcomes (emergency department visit, hospital readmission, and death) obtained from national databases.A total of 934 hospitalization records were included. Mean comprehensiveness and informational continuity scores were 55% ± 12% and 42% ± 16%, respectively. Items related to geriatric global assessment (eg, functional autonomy) were particularly overlooked. Patient-centered care was poorly provided, with only 24% of hospitalization records showing evidence of advance care directives and at least one patient/family meeting with the physician to discuss clinical evolution. For the three care processes, a large variability among Geriatric Assessment Units was observed. Better comprehensiveness of care was associated with lowered short-term mortality (OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.55-0.96, P = .023), whereas higher scores on informational continuity was associated with fewer emergency department visits (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.82-1.00, P = .046), hospital readmissions (OR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.74-0.94, P = .003), and mortality (OR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.59-0.88, P = .002). Patient-centered care was not associated with any of the postdischarge outcomes.A large gap between geriatric care principles and practice in Geriatric Assessment Units has been observed. Our results show that improvement in care processes may be translated to decreased short-term health services use and mortality.