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Using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) in geriatric emergency medicine
  1. James D van Oppen1,2,
  2. Pieter Heeren3,4
  1. 1 Centre for Urgent and Emergency Care Research, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
  2. 2 College of Life Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  3. 3 Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, Healthcare & Ethics Research Group, UHasselt, Hasselt, Belgium
  4. 4 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Academic Centre for Nursing and Midwifery, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  1. Correspondence to Dr James D van Oppen; james.vanoppen{at}doctors.org.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2024-213906

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    The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) uses clinician judgement to quantify the functional impacts of multidimensional health deficits.1 The CFS has become widely adopted in research and clinical settings and has been recommended in the UK for routine administration with adults aged 65+ years with unscheduled hospital attendances.

    Frailty screening at ED triage has been recommended for its potential to alter downstream processes and attune care to the individual. The study by Munir Ehrlington et al yields post-implementation evidence for CFS concordance and patient outcomes in typical clinical emergency care.2 Pragmatically, the methods and ethics approvals allowed for analysis of anonymous routine data without consent, thus widening the representation of older people living with frailty who are so often excluded from the very research vital to improve their care. It is notable that only approximately half of patients attending during the study period had CFS recorded, reflecting expectedly moderate staff adherence and competing tasks.3 Little is known of the missed attenders, who perhaps …

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Mary Dawood

    • X @J_vanOppen

    • Contributors JDvO and PH wrote the manuscript and share responsibility for any views presented.

    • Competing interests JDvO and PH are co-chairs of the section on Geriatric Emergency Medicine, European Society for Emergency Medicine.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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