INTRODUCTION: The 30-day post-discharge readmission rate is a quality indicator that may reflect suboptimal care. The computerised algorithm SQLape® can retrospectively identify a potentially avoidable readmission (PARA) with high sensitivity and specificity. We retrospectively analysed the hospital stays of patients readmitted to the Department of Internal Medicine of the CHUV (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois) in order to quantify the proportion of PARAs and derive a risk prediction model.

METHOD: All hospitalisations between January 2009 and December 2011 in our division of general internal medicine were analysed. Readmissions within 30 days of discharge were categorised using SQLape®. The impact on PARAs was tested for various clinical and nonclinical factors. The performance of the developed model was compared with the well-validated LACE and HOSPITAL scores.

RESULTS: From a total of 11 074 hospital stays, 777 (7%) were followed with PARA within 30 days. By analysing a group of 6729 eligible stays, defined in particular by the patients' returning to their place of residence (home or residential care centre), we identified the following risk factors: ≥1 hospitalisation in the year preceding index admission, Charlson score >1, active cancer, hyponatraemia, length of stay >11 days, prescription of ≥15 different medications during the stay. These variables were used to derive a risk prediction model for PARA with a good discriminatory power (C-statistic 0.70) and calibration (p = 0.69). Patients were then classified as low (16.4%), intermediate (49.4%) or high (34.2%) risk of PARA. The estimated risk of PARA for each category was 3.5%, 8.7% and 19.6%, respectively. The LACE and the HOSPITAL scores were significantly correlated with the PARA risk. The discriminatory power of the LACE (C-statistic 0.61) and the HOSPITAL (C-statistic 0.54) were lower than our model.

CONCLUSION: Our model identifies patients at high risk of 30-day PARA with a good performance. It could be used to target transition of care interventions. Nevertheless, this model should be validated on more data and could be improved with additional parameters. Our results highlight the difficulty to generalise one model in the context of different healthcare systems.

BACKGROUND: Systemic sclerosis is a chronic disabling disease that is often associated with severe physical and psychological impairment. Nonetheless, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with systemic sclerosis is often left behind in clinical practice and research. One of the reasons for this lack of evaluation is the current use of tools, such as the short form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire, that are complete but complicated to use in everyday routine. Other self-reported outcome measures such as the health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) are simple, but specifically designed for physical disability.

STUDY AIMS AND METHODS: Our aim was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and construct validity of EQ-5D, a simple and quick self-assessment tool, and to compare its performance with SF-36 and HAQ. We investigated 119 consecutive patients with systemic sclerosis (94% female; age: median 63 years, interquartile range 53–70 years) at three different rheumatology centres. Acceptability was evaluated from comments made by the patients and feasibility on the basis of the number of patients needing assistance or not answering questions (missing data). Construct validity was based on both convergent and divergent validity between conceptually similar and dissimilar domains, respectively, of the compared instruments.

RESULTS: EQ-5D was well accepted by patients. The percentage of patients missing data in at least one EQ-5D domain was 2.5%. Spearman’s correlation coefficients between similar dimensions of EQ-5D vs SF-36 and vs HAQ were moderate (≥0.30) to strong (≥0.50); in contrast, correlation coefficients between less comparable dimensions were weak. As expected, the EQ-5D anxiety/depression domain did not correlate with any of the HAQ domains. The EQ-5D visual analogue scale (VAS) concordance with SF-36 general health domain and HAQ total score was strong (≥0.50 for both). Median value for the EQ-5D index (interquartile range) was 0.81 (0.75–0.86). The EQ-5D index had correlation coefficients >0.40 with all SF-36 domains and with all HAQ domains, HAQ total and HAQ VAS.

CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate good acceptability, feasibility and construct validity of EQ-5D in patients with systemic sclerosis. We suggest the use of EQ-5D in systemic sclerosis patients as an HRQoL measure in clinical practice, in randomised clinical trials and/or in pharmacoeconomic evaluations.