Association of a Frailty Screening Initiative With Postoperative Survival at 30, 180, and 365 Days.

Importance: As the US population ages, the number of operations performed on elderly patients will likely increase. Frailty predicts postoperative mortality and morbidity more than age alone, thus presenting opportunities to identify the highest-risk surgical patients and improve their outcomes.

Objective: To examine the effect of the Frailty Screening Initiative (FSI) on mortality and complications by comparing the surgical outcomes of a cohort of surgical patients treated before and after implementation of the FSI.

Development and Initial Validation of the Risk Analysis Index for Measuring Frailty in Surgical Populations.

Importance: Growing consensus suggests that frailty-associated risks should inform shared surgical decision making. However, it is not clear how best to screen for frailty in preoperative surgical populations.

Objective: To develop and validate the Risk Analysis Index (RAI), a 14-item instrument used to measure surgical frailty.