Identification of Older Adult Fall Occurrence by Brief Emergency Department Triage Screen

Annually, over 2.3 million older adults (OAs) present to US emergency departments (EDs) after experiencing a fall; many experience significant morbidity and mortality.1,2 Early identification of a fall-related ED presentation optimizes the diagnosis and treatment of prefall medical conditions and postfall traumatic injuries, minimizes ED injury risk, and enables timely referrals to promote safer mobility following discharge.3-5 Current ED guidelines recommend screening for falls, mitigation of in-hospital falls, and systematic referral to reduce future fall risk.6 However, screening for fall occurrence in OAs is uncommon.7,8 The goal of this study was to assess the ability of a two-question triage screen combined with documented chief complaint to effectively identify the occurrence of fall in undifferentiated ED patients aged 65 years or older.We compared the sensitivity of the falls triage screen to other modalities, including algorithms based on diagnosis codes and chief complaint data.