UB researcher developing algorithm to cut hospital readmissions for COPD patients

To lower hospital readmission rates for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), UB pharmacy researcher David Jacobs has received a $962,000 award from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to develop a real-time readmission risk-prediction algorithm.

Through a five-year Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award, Jacobs will combine social information with rich clinical data to build predictive models that will be integrated into patient-centric interventions and tested in clinical practices.

If successful, the research will help clinicians provide individualized treatment at the transition from hospital to home for COPD patients, who experience high rates of early hospital readmission, says Jacobs.

“Each year, 7.8 million hospital-discharged patients are readmitted, costing the United States $17 billion,” says Jacobs, assistant professor of pharmacy practice, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

“High readmission rates are linked to several quality-of-care and patient-safety factors, such as medication-related problems, inaccurate information transfer, and lack of care coordination with primary care,” he says. “Our focus will be to apply innovative informatic techniques to the development of risk prediction models for hospital readmissions that ultimately personalizes care management interventions.”

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Source: UBNow, 21 May 2021