Using Patient Flow Information to Determine Risk of Hospital Presentation: Protocol for a Proof-of-Concept Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Every day, patients are admitted to the hospital with conditions that could have been effectively managed in the primary care sector. These admissions are expensive and in many cases are possible to avoid if early intervention occurs. General practitioners are in the best position to identify those at risk of imminent hospital presentation and admission; however, it is not always possible for all the factors to be considered. A lack of shared information contributes significantly to the challenge of understanding a patient's full medical history. Some health care systems around the world use algorithms to analyze patient data in order to predict events such as emergency presentat..