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Springer, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 3(36), p. 730-737, 2020

DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-06353-5

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Derivation of a Clinical Risk Score to Predict 14-Day Occurrence of Hypoxia, ICU Admission, and Death Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Abstract Background Uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 regarding rapid progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome and unusual clinical characteristics make discharge from a monitored setting challenging. A clinical risk score to predict 14-day occurrence of hypoxia, ICU admission, and death is unavailable. Objective Derive and validate a risk score to predict suitability for discharge from a monitored setting among an early cohort of patients with COVID-19. Design Model derivation and validation in a retrospective cohort. We built a manual forward stepwise logistic regression model to identify variables associated with suitability for discharge and assigned points to each variable. Event-free patients were included after at least 14 days of follow-up. Participants All adult patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis between March 1, 2020, and April 12, 2020, in 10 hospitals in Massachusetts, USA. Main Measures Fourteen-day composite predicting hypoxia, ICU admission, and death. We calculated a risk score for each patient as a predictor of suitability for discharge evaluated by area under the curve. Key Results Of 2059 patients with COVID-19, 1326 met inclusion. The 1014-patient training cohort had a mean age of 58 years, was 56% female, and 65% had at least one comorbidity. A total of 255 (25%) patients were suitable for discharge. Variables associated with suitability for discharge were age, oxygen saturation, and albumin level, yielding a risk score between 0 and 55. At a cut point of 30, the score had a sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 82%. The respective c-statistic for the derivation and validation cohorts were 0.8939 (95% CI, 0.8687 to 0.9192) and 0.8685 (95% CI, 0.8095 to 0.9275). The score performed similarly for inpatients and emergency department patients. Conclusions A 3-item risk score for patients with COVID-19 consisting of age, oxygen saturation, and an acute phase reactant (albumin) using point of care data predicts suitability for discharge and may optimize scarce resources.