title: Estimating risk.
abstract: A free mobile phone app has been launched providing nurses and other hospital clinicians with a simple way to identify high-risk surgical patients. The app is a phone version of the Surgical Outcome Risk Tool (SORT), originally developed for online use with computers by researchers from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death and the University College London Hospital Surgical Outcomes Research Centre. SORT uses information about patients' health and planned surgical procedures to estimate the risk of death within 30 days of an operation. The percentages are only estimates, taking into account the general risks of the procedures and some information about patients, and should not be confused with patient-specific estimates in individual cases.