News: Tool helps predict readmission risk for AMI patients
Research published by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project shows that about one in six AMI patients are readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of discharge, with annual healthcare costs estimated at $1 billion. But a new risk model, published in a recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), provides a simple way to determine whether acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients are at high risk for hospital readmission, HealthLeaders Media reported.
Targeting AMI patients who are at high-risk of readmission also helps hospitals avoid financial penalties under the federal Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and promotes cost-effective interventions, the JAHA researchers wrote.
The risk model (called “AMI READMITS”) features seven variables that can be scored in as little as five minutes during a patient’s first day of hospital admission, according to HealthLeaders Media, including:
- Renal function
- Elevated brain natriuretic peptide
- Age
- Diabetes mellitus
- Non-male sex
- Intervention with timely percutaneous coronary intervention
- Low systolic blood pressure
According to the researchers, the score from this model “is the best at identifying patients at high risk for 30-day hospital readmission; is easy to implement in clinical settings; and provides actionable data in real time.”
The researchers studied this model at six Texas hospitals for 826 AMI patients. Here are some of their key findings:
- The score accurately predicts which AMI patients are at high or low risk of readmission. The study found that about one third of the patients deemed at high risk had a 30-day readmission; only 2% of low risk patients experienced a readmission.
- The score can accurately predict readmission risk during the first 24 hours of a hospital inpatient stay.
- Clinical severity metrics such as shock, heart strain or failure, and renal dysfunction as well as timely percutaneous coronary intervention were strongly associated with readmission risk.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in HealthLeaders Media. To read the complete study in JAHA, click here. To listen to last week’s episode of ACDIS Radio focusing on the fourth universal definition of MI, click here.