Discharge Home From Hospital: How DIRE Can It Be?

AIM: An easy-to-use "DIRE" questionnaire tool was developed to predict an adverse event (AE) within 30 days following discharge from a hospital to the community, among frail elderly individuals aged 65+ years.

METHODS: Hospital-administered RAI-HC (Residential Assessment Instrument for Home Care) assessment data from 1,433 individuals were used to develop the tool.

RESULTS: The DIRE tool outperformed two other instruments that have been used to predict risk in similar populations. Furthermore, the DIRE index was validated on a hold-out sample and in a bootstrapping analysis.

DISCUSSION: In addition to its effectiveness in predicting an AE, the added advantages of the DIRE assessment is that only a small amount of data is required and the data are readily available to clinicians at the point of hospital discharge.