The Edmonton Frail Scale as a preoperative assessment tool in elective outpatient surgery

Excerpt

Frailty has been shown to be predictive of poorer postoperative outcomes in older surgical patients. Although patients undergoing elective outpatient surgery are expected to possess the required fitness for same-day discharge, those living with frailty have increased complications, unplanned admissions, emergency department visits, and mortality.1 Although it is widely accepted that frailty should be assessed routinely before surgery, there is no consensus on which frailty instrument is best suited for preoperative assessment. In one meta-analysis,2 frailty was defined using 35 different instruments. While this review advocated the use of the Clinical Frailty Scale in terms of accuracy and feasibility overall, the Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS) was also identified as a promising tool that has been relatively understudied. The EFS is a multidimensional frailty assessment tool that has been shown to be feasible for use in a preoperative clinic and predictive of postoperative outcomes.3 In contrast to the Clinical Frailty Scale, it provides areas for potential modification.3 …