Sustainability and impact of the implementation of a frailty checklist for the acute medical unit: experience from a tertiary public hospital in Singapore

BACKGROUND: Accelerated population ageing is associated with an increasing prevalence of frailty. International guidelines call for systematic assessment and timely interventions for older persons requiring acute care. Checklists have been applied successfully in healthcare settings. OBJECTIVE: This study describes the implementation of a safety checklist for frailty in the acute medical unit (AMU) of a tertiary public hospital in Singapore. We explored the sustainability of processes up to 6 months after initial implementation. Additionally, we investigated process and system outcome benefits following the implementation of the checklist. METHODS: This retrospective observational study used case notes review of patients admitted to the AMU of a tertiary public hospital in Singapore from February to August 2019. Process outcomes measured to include compliance with AMU frailty checklist assessments and interventions at 24 hours of hospital admission. System and patient outcomes studied to include the length of hospital stay; 30-day emergency department reattendance rate; 30-day hospital readmission rate and inpatient mortality. Propensity scores were used to create balanced cohorts for comparison between those with complete and incomplete compliance with the checklist. Logistic regression was used to adjust for known confounders. RESULTS: Average weekly (all-or-nothing) compliance with the frailty checklist (14.7%) was sustained for 6 months. Where assessments detected high risk, appropriate interventions were appropriately triggered (44%–97.4%). While trends to benefit systems and patient outcomes were present, these were not statistically significant. Contextual patterns are discussed. CONCLUSION: A safety checklist for frailty was feasibly implemented in the AMU. The checklist was a complex intervention. Full compliance with the checklist was challenging to achieve. Further research assessing optimal patient selection criteria and how checklists may shift team behaviour is a priority.