Fall Risk Screening in Older Adult Patients on Chronic Opioid Therapy: A Quality Improvement Project

Many older adults prescribed opioid pain medications may be at increased risk of falls. As a quality improvement (QI) initiative, the University of Utah Sugar House clinic initiated a 9-month fall risk screening pilot for older adult patients on chronic opioids. This QI project sought to determine the feasibility of adding screening to a busy clinical practice, examine risk of falls in this patient cohort, and examine whether there were significant clinical and demographic differences between the patients who did or did not receive screening. We observed whether conventionally understood fall risk factors, including higher opioid doses, concurrent benzodiazepine prescription, and age, correlate with high fall risk. After the screening initiative, we determined that it was possible to significantly increase fall risk screening rates with prompts in Electronic Health Record (EHR). This cohort's fall risk screening increased from 18% to 33%. In the patients who were screened, 43% were found to be at high risk of falls. We did not see a correlation with high fall risk and patients taking higher doses of opioids or concurrent benzodiazepine prescriptions. These findings emphasize the need for consistent screening in primary care because review of the medication list alone is not a reliable predictor of fall risk.