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New horizons in the analysis of hospital readmissions of older adults

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Abstract

This short communication highlights analytical methods that can be usefully applied to the problem of hospital readmissions of older adults. The limitations of the models currently used in studies of hospital readmissions are described. In summary, analyses of hospital readmissions face two important methodological and statistical problems not accounted for by these currently used statistical models: the potential recurrence of readmissions, and death, a terminal event which absorbs the readmission process. Not addressing the issue raised by recurrent events and terminal event generates biased estimates. We discuss an approach for the analysis of hospital readmission risk and death in the same framework. Understanding the features of this kind of approaches is essential at a time when high-quality data on hospital readmission in older patients are becoming available to a large number of researchers. Models adapted for the analysis of recurrent and terminal events are presented, and their application to studies of hospital readmission are explained, with reference to two cohorts of several thousand older individuals.

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Fig. 1

Data availability

Data are available on request from the principal investigator.

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Funding

The DAMAGE cohort study is funded by the French government’s inter-regional hospital-based clinical research program (reference: PHRC I 13–097).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Lille, CHU Lille, ULR 2694 - METRICS: Évaluation des technologies de santé et des pratiques médicales, F-59000, Lille, France

    Fabien Visade, Jean-Baptiste Beuscart, Guillaume Deschasse & Genia Babykina

  2. Department of Geriatrics, Lille Catholic Hospitals, 59000, Lille, France

    Fabien Visade

  3. Research Department, Biostatistics, Lille Catholic Hospitals, 59000, Lille, France

    Laurène Norberciak

  4. Department of Geriatrics, CHU Amiens-Picardie, 80054, Amiens, France

    Guillaume Deschasse

Authors
  1. Fabien Visade
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  2. Jean-Baptiste Beuscart
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  3. Laurène Norberciak
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  4. Guillaume Deschasse
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  5. Genia Babykina
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by FV, GB and J-BB. The first draft of the manuscript was written by FV and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabien Visade.

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Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The DAMAGE study was performed in compliance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the local independent ethics committee (CPP Nord-Ouest IV, Lille, France).

Statement of human and animal rights

The patients and their primary family caregivers or legal representatives were given detailed verbal and written information about the DAMAGE study, in order to ensure that the patients fully understood the potential risks and benefits of participation. In accordance with the French legislation on observational, non-interventional studies of routine clinical care.

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Written consent was not required.

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Visade, F., Beuscart, JB., Norberciak, L. et al. New horizons in the analysis of hospital readmissions of older adults. Aging Clin Exp Res 35, 2267–2270 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-023-02514-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-023-02514-8

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