Predicting adverse outcomes in older medical emergency department patients

Elderly people (≥ 65 years old) who visit the emergency room (ER) are at high risk of adverse outcomes such as admission to intensive care, readmission, loss of function and/or death. Early recognition of high-risk patients is of great importance in order to improve the care, outcome and/or quality of life of patients. This dissertation describes how you can map the risk of death within 30 days. Various drugs are compared that reflect disease severity on their ability to predict adverse outcomes: (a) the clinical gaze of the patient, nurse and doctor, b) the concerns of the patients and their caregivers and c) some factors in the blood specific to certain conditions (biomarkers). The main result of this research is the development of a new model that estimates the risk of mortality of acutely-ill elderly people within 30 days of ER visit (the RISE UP score) very well. The accuracy of this score is unique in the world of the ER. The RISE UP score was also successfully tested in COVID-19 patients of all ages