Frailty identification for older people using electronic hospital records

Centre for health informatics

Research stream

Precision Health

Project members

Professor Shlomo Berkovsky – Precision Health
Dr Hao Xiong – Research Fellow
Gregory van Wyk - Phd Candidate

Professor Shlomo Berkovsky
E: shlomo.berkovsky@mq.edu.au

Project main description

Frailty describes a decline in function across several organ systems, linked to ageing but progressing at different rates in different people. It is characterised by increased risk of poor outcomes in individuals exposed to stressors, including innocuous ones. Since frailty is potentially a determinant of the way care resources are used, it is crucial to identify people at high frailty risk of poor outcomes, as early as possible.

Clearly, older people are most likely to suffer from frailty. Meanwhile, older people are major users of acute hospital care in developed countries, and increasingly in the developing world. For some older people, hospital admission is associated with an increased risk of harm over and above the presenting clinical condition. Therefore, we aim to develop a screening tool capable of quantifying frailty risk and describing phenotypic clusters in the high frailty risk stratum that can guide clinical decision-making.

To achieve that, we carry out a cluster analysis to identify a group of older people admitted to hospital who had high resource use and diagnoses associated with frailty. The dataset for analysis includes NSW Emergency Department Data Collection, NSW Registry of Births and Marriages – Death Registration and NSW Admitted Patient Data Collection.

Collaborative partners

• Julia Chessman, Agency for Clinical Innovation
• Kim Sutherland, Agency for Clinical Innovation
• Kate Lloyd, Agency for Clinical Innovation
• Professor Maria Fiatarone Singh, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney

Project sponsors

Macquarie University, NHMRC Partnership Centre for Health System Sustainability

Project status

Current

Centres related to this project

Centre for Health Informatics

Photo by Cristina Serí on Unsplash