Frailty: a predictor of mortality, hospital readmission, and length of stay?

Article: Elderly Outcomes After Hospitalization: The Hospital Frailty Risk Score Applied on the French Health Data Hub

The Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS) was developed to detect frail individuals based on data extracted from hospital databases. An association between the HFRS, 30-day mortality, 30-day emergency hospital readmission, and long length of stay (LOS) was originally validated in populations of elderly patients admitted to hospital via the emergency department. Data regarding the HFRS’ predictive ability in the context of direct admissions and post-discharge outcomes is thus lacking.

The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between the HFRS and 30-day mortality, 30-day hospital readmission, and long LOS by analysing in- and out-patient healthcare in France.

Key learnings:

HFRS was found to be predictive of 30-day mortality and readmission, and long (>10-day) hospital stays in elderly patients discharged from acute care settings in France. 30-day hospital readmission in particular was found to be associated with a high HFRS but not with an intermediate HFRS. These associations were still found to be significant after adjusting for social deprivation, which was itself positively associated with 30-day hospital readmission and LOS >10 days, but negatively associated with 30-day mortality.

Reviewed by: S. Duarte

Authors: Dubnitskiy-Robin S, Laurent E, Herbert J et al.

Published in: Journal of Aging and Health 2022