2022-08-31

LACE Index for Readmission Risk

Plentiful evidence shows that patients with multiple comorbidities, frequent emergency room visits or other frailty indicators are more likely to present for readmission to hospital within a short time following their last discharge. Many of these readmissions are preventable, mostly through anticipation, communication and provision of post-discharge supports. 

AHS uses the "LACE readmission risk index" to stratify patients into those who are at low, moderate or high risk for early readmission. The index considers the patient's length of stay, admission type, comorbidities and frequency of emergency room visits. 

Most of the information needed to calculate a LACE Index is available to Connect Care in-system, and does not need to be entered by prescribers. An automatically calculated LACE Index has been developed for Connect Care and has been tested during summer 2022. It is now in production, continually updated for all inpatients. 

2022-08-30

All User Bulletin - Cognitive Assessment Tools

All-user-bulletins highlight stumbling blocks that all prescribers need to be aware of when using the Connect Care clinical information system.

Change in Embedded Cognitive Assessment Tools

Connect Care provides access to a wide range of clinical scores, scales, calculations and assessment tools. These are described in the Clinician Manual.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) takes care to ensure that permission is obtained from copyright holders for any scores, scales or tools embedded in the Connect Care clinical information system.

The copyright contract for two popular cognitive assessment tools will expire August 31, 2022: the Standardized Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). AHS has carefully reviewed evidence-based alternatives and has elected to obtain permissions for a panel of these in Connect Care. 
Prescribers can find cognitive assessment tools via the Flowsheets activity within an opened chart. They are also available in a clinician-friendly format in both a "Scores and Scales" navigator (use chart search for "score" and select "jump to Scores and Scales") and the inpatient chart sidebar (use the sidebar index to navigate to a "Scores" view). Both the navigator and the sidebar have groupings for AHS approved cognitive assessment tools. 

The sidebar tools are interactive, in that any score can be selected to update its data then closed with the refreshed data showing in the sidebar. The Sidebar also provides links to the Navigator as well as other clinically useful quantitative tools.