RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Selecting ambulatory emergency care (AEC) patients from the medical emergency in-take: the derivation and validation of the <em>Amb</em> score
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 420
OP 426
DO 10.7861/clinmedicine.12-5-420
VO 12
IS 5
A1 Les Ala
A1 Jennifer Mack
A1 Rachel Shaw
A1 Andrea Gasson
A1 Emma Cogbill
A1 Rose Marion
A1 Rasha Rahman
A1 Francesca Deibel
A1 Nia Rathbone
YR 2012
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/12/5/420.abstract
AB 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 0.88–0.94). An Amb score of ≥5 has a sensitivity of 96% (95% CI 90–98) and a specificity of 62% (95% CI 55–68) in identifying potential AEC patients.