Unplanned Hospital Admissions (UHAs) are acute clinical events that impact approximately 8.5 million Medicare beneficiaries each year. These events are frequently life-altering. For older adults who are hospitalized, 30% experience a significant enough decline in their ability to perform daily activities that it reduces their ability to maintain independence. And for many, that decline is permanent.
Learn how AI can help to reduce unplanned hospital admissions, avoid unforeseen readmissions, and promote effective care transitions. Discover how AI can identify at-risk patients with critical gaps in care continuity, distinguish patients in need of enhanced functional supports, and improve rehabilitation and transition planning.
Data extracted from health insurance medical claims with details about dates and place of service, diagnosis codes, key procedures, use of medical equipment, and provider specialties.
Data about important risk markers from tests used for diagnosis, monitoring therapy, or screening, with details about specific results and abnormal indicators.
Geo-centric data with details about the social and environmental influences on people’s health and outcomes.
ClosedLoop generates explainable predictions using
thousands of auto-generated, clinically relevant contributing factors
Unplanned hospital admissions (UHAs) are acute clinical events that require an urgent hospital admission. For older adults, UHAs often presage a critical turning point in their health and frequently lead to disability in activities of daily living (ADL), significantly diminishing their ability to maintain functional independence. UHAs are also associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and dramatically increased long-term care needs and costs.
Annually, an estimated 8.5 million* Medicare beneficiaries experience at least one unplanned hospital admission, and hospitalizations among older adults account for over one-third of all hospitalizations.¹ 30% of older adults hospitalized for acute events experience decline in their ability to perform ADL as a result of their hospitalization, and for many, it is permanent.² Patients discharged with new or additional ADLs are also approximately 20% more likely to die within one year.³
More than 25% of patients discharged with a new ADL or additional disability fail to recover their baseline functioning after one year, and UHAs reduces the likelihood of recovery from existing disabilities.³ For non-surgical hospitalizations, patients can also experience a decline in community mobility, and many show little evidence of recovery even after two years. Although functional decline following UHAs may be attributable to the initial cause of admission, aspects of the hospitalization experience itself, such as prolonged immobility and disorientation, can also contribute significantly.⁴
Predictive analytics present an opportunity to proactively identify individual patients at high risk for an UHA. This insight can support comprehensive care programs centered on reducing UHAs and may facilitate key intervention efforts. Leveraging AI can enable care teams to identify and address potential disconnects in the care continuum on an individual basis, improve transition planning, and provide additional support following planned procedures for high-risk patients. Armed with AI, providers are ultimately able to reduce UHAs, lower costs, and improve health outcomes.
* This figure was calculated by taking the percentage of beneficiaries with UHAs in the final stage of the CMS Artificial Intelligence Health Outcomes Challenge and applying that to the total number of all Medicare beneficiaries.
1. AHRQ “Statistical Brief #261 - National Inpatient Hospital Costs: The Most Expensive Conditions by Payer, 2017.” Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Jul. 2020. Accessed Mar. 9, 2021.
2. Wells, Elina U. et al. "Factors That Contribute To Recovery Of Community Mobility After Hospitalization Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults". Journal Of Applied Gerontology, vol 39, no. 4, 2018, pp. 435-441. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/0733464818770788.
3. Boyd, Cynthia M et al. “Recovery of activities of daily living in older adults after hospitalization for acute medical illness.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society vol. 56, no. 12, Dec. 2008 pp. 2171-9. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2008.02023.x
4. Zisberg, Anna et al. “Hospital-associated functional decline: the role of hospitalization processes beyond individual risk factors.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society vol. 63, no. 1 17 Jan. 2015, pp. 55-62. doi:10.1111/jgs.13193.