@article {Ala420, author = {Les Ala and Jennifer Mack and Rachel Shaw and Andrea Gasson and Emma Cogbill and Rose Marion and Rasha Rahman and Francesca Deibel and Nia Rathbone}, title = {Selecting ambulatory emergency care (AEC) patients from the medical emergency in-take: the derivation and validation of the Amb score}, volume = {12}, number = {5}, pages = {420--426}, year = {2012}, doi = {10.7861/clinmedicine.12-5-420}, publisher = {Royal College of Physicians}, abstract = {Accurate prediction of the likelihood of same-day discharge could make it possible to direct one-third of the medical in-take to an ambulatory care unit, thereby facilitating bed management. In Phase 1 of this study, we identified seven independent factors that contribute to an ambulatory care score (Amb score) that can potentially be used as a tool to select ambulatory emergency care (AEC) patients from the medical emergency in-take. A high score was associated with discharge within 12 hours of assessment and treatment in hospital. In Phase 2, we verified and internally validated the performance of the Amb score in a different cohort of patients, finding that it functioned well in identifying early discharges (ie AEC patients), with an area under the receiver operator curve (AUROC) of 0.91 (95\% CI 0.88{\textendash}0.94). An Amb score of >=5 has a sensitivity of 96\% (95\% CI 90{\textendash}98) and a specificity of 62\% (95\% CI 55{\textendash}68) in identifying potential AEC patients.}, issn = {1470-2118}, URL = {https://www.rcpjournals.org/content/12/5/420}, eprint = {https://www.rcpjournals.org/content/12/5/420.full.pdf}, journal = {Clinical Medicine} }