Predicting Unplanned Admissions to Hospital in Older Adults Using Routinely Recorded General Practice Data: Development and Validation of a Prediction Model

Background: Unplanned admissions to hospital represent a hazardous event for older people. Timely identification of high-risk individuals using a prediction tool may facilitate preventive interventions.

Aim: To develop and validate an easy-to-use prediction model for unplanned admissions to hospital in community-dwelling older adults using readily available data to allow rapid bedside assessment by GPs.

Design And Setting: This was a retrospective study using the general practice electronic health records of 243 324 community-dwelling adults aged ≥65 years linked with national administrative data to predict unplanned admissions to hospital within 6 months.

Method: The dataset was geographically split into a development ( = 142 791/243 324, 58.7%) and validation ( = 100 533/243 324, 41.3%) sample to predict unplanned admissions to hospital within 6 months. The performance of three different models was evaluated with increasingly smaller selections of candidate predictors (optimal, readily available, and easy-to-use models). Logistic regression was used with backward selection for model development. The models were validated internally and externally. Predictive performance was assessed by area under the curve (AUC) and calibration plots.

Results: In both samples, 7.6% (development cohort: = 10 839/142 791, validation cohort: = 7675/100 533) had ≥1 unplanned hospital admission within 6 months. The discriminative ability of the three models was comparable and remained stable after geographic validation. The easy-to-use model included age, sex, prior admissions to hospital, pulmonary emphysema, heart failure, and polypharmacy. Its discriminative ability after validation was AUC 0.72 (95% confidence interval = 0.71 to 0.72). Calibration plots showed good calibration.

Conclusion: The models showed satisfactory predictive ability. Reducing the number of predictors and geographic validation did not have an impact on predictive performance, demonstrating the robustness of the model. An easy-to-use tool has been developed in this study that may assist GPs in decision making and with targeted preventive interventions.