Streamlining outpatient geriatric assessment: essential social, environmental and economic variables

There are no known standardized instruments that encompass all of the essential elements of a streamlined outpatient geriatric assessment. A process of arriving at a consensus on essential elements of streamlined geriatric assessment in 3 domains was initiated and described. Two rounds of the Delphi technique were conducted to identify social, environmental and economic variables essential for such an assessment. Consensus among an expert panel was achieved and a list of 27 variables was reduced to 16. This result is discussed in terms of assessment context and standardizing assessment, using case examples.