Prediction of hospital readmission of multimorbid patients using machine learning models

Objective The objective of this study is twofold. First, we seek to understand the characteristics of the multimorbid population that needs hospital care by using all diagnoses information (ICD-10 codes) and two aggregated multimorbidity and frailty scores. Second, we use machine learning prediction models on these multimorbid patients characteristics to predict rehospitalization within 30 and 365 days and their length of stay. Methods This study was conducted on 8 882 anonymized patients hospitalized at the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne. A descriptive statistical analysis was performed to better understand the characteristics of the patient population. Multimorbidity was measured using raw diagnoses information and two specific scores based on clusters of diagnoses: the Hospital Frailty Risk Score and the Calderon-Larranaga index. Based on these variables different machine learning models (Decision Tree, Random forest and k-nearest Neighbors) were used to predict near future rehospitalization and length of stay (LoS). Results The use of random forest algorithms yielded better performance to predict both 365 and 30 days rehospitalization and using the diagnoses ICD-10 codes directly was significantly more efficient. However, using the Calderon-Larranaga's clusters of diagnoses can be used as an efficient substitute for diagnoses information for predicting readmission. The predictive power of the algorithms is quite low on length of stay indicator. Conclusion Using machine learning techniques using patients' diagnoses information and Calderon-Larranaga's score yielded efficient results to predict hospital readmission of multimorbid patients. These methods could help improve the management of care of multimorbid patients in hospitals.