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Abstract Background Frailty is a complex age-related clinical condition that increases vulnerability to stressors. Early recognition of frailty is challenging. While primary care providers (PCPs) serve as the first point of contact for most older adults, convenient tools for identifying frailty in primary care are lacking. Electronic consultation (eConsult), a platform connecting PCPs to specialists, is a rich source of provider-to-provider communication data. Text-based patient descriptions on eConsult may provide opportunities for earlier identification of frailty. We sought to explore the feasibility and validity of identifying frailty status using eConsult data. Methods eConsult cases closed in 2019 and submitted on behalf of long-term care (LTC) residents or community-dwelling older adults were sampled. A list of frailty-related terms was compiled through a review of the literature and consultation with experts. To identify frailty, eConsult text was parsed to measure the frequency of frailty-related terms. Feasibility of this approach was assessed by examining the availability of frailty-related terms in eConsult communication logs, and by asking clinicians to indicate whether they can assess likelihood of frailty by reviewing the cases. Construct validity was assessed by comparing the number of frailty-related terms in cases about LTC residents with those about community-dwelling older adults. Criterion validity was assessed by comparing clinicians' ratings of frailty to the frequency of frailty-related terms. Results One hundred thirteen LTC and 112 community cases were included. Frailty-related terms identified per case averaged 4.55 ± 3.95 in LTC and 1.96 ± 2.68 in the community (p

Introduction The number of Canadians 75 years and older is expected to double over the next 20 years, putting continuing care systems such as long-term care (LTC) homes under increasing pressure. Health information technology (IT) has been found to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care in numerous clinical settings and could help optimise LTC for residents. However, the level of health IT adoption in Ontario’s LTC homes is unknown and, as a result, requires an accurate assessment to provide a baseline understanding for future planning.Methods and analysis We will use a cross-sectional design to investigate the level of IT maturity in Ontario’s LTC homes. IT maturity will be assessed with the LTC IT Maturity Instrument, a validated survey examining IT capabilities, the extent of IT use and degree of internal/external IT integration across the domains of resident care, clinical support and administrative activities. All LTC homes in Ontario will be invited to participate. The Director of Care for each home will be directly contacted for recruitment. The survey will be distributed online (or by paper, if preferred) to LTC homes and completed by a staff member designated by the LTC to be knowledgeable about its IT systems. Analyses will consist of descriptive statistics characterising IT maturity across LTC homes and inferential statistics to examine the association between key facility-level characteristics (size, ownership, rurality) and IT maturity.Ethics and dissemination This study was reviewed by the Ottawa Health Science Network Research Ethics Board and was exempt from full ethics review. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication and presentations to the scientific community and stakeholders. Dissemination of our findings will not only inform provincial planning for harnessing the potential of technology in LTC but may also enable quality improvement initiatives in individual LTC homes.