Effectiveness of an Automated Falls-Risk Screening and Referral Tool in the Emergency Department (ED)

The purpose of this retrospective cohort study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an EHR-based clinical decision support system (CDS) for automatically screening older adult ED patients for risk of future falls and providing ED clinicians opportunity to place referrals orders to the UW Health Mobility and Falls Clinic for those at highest risk prior to discharge.

This CDS tool has already been implemented at the UW Hospital ED, and as a QI initiative will be implemented in a staged process at two other UW Health-affiliated emergency departments (The American Center and Swedish American Hospital).