Key factors associated with these events were length of stay ("L"), acuity of admission ("A"), patient comorbidity ("C") and number of visits to the emergency room ("E"). Called the LACE index for easy recall, the index has a potential score of 0 to 19. While easy to use, the system will be difficult to memorize and will need a computational aid.
"We believe that the LACE index can be used by clinicians, researchers and administrators to predict the risk of early death or unplanned readmission of cognitively intact medical or surgical patients after discharge from the hospital to the community," they conclude. Further research is needed to determine if identifying the risk of poor death or readmissions changes patient care or outcomes.
Source-Eurekalert
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