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Adverse Events and Bundled Costs after Cranial Neurosurgical Procedures: Validation of the LACE Index Across 40,431 Admissions and Development of the LACE-Cranial Index.

Adverse Events and Bundled Costs after Cranial Neurosurgical Procedures: Validation of the LACE Index Across 40,431 Admissions and Development of the LACE-Cranial Index. World neurosurgery Jin, M. C., Wu, A. n., Medress, Z. A., Parker, J. J., Desai, A. n., Veeravagu, A. n., Grant, G. A., Li, G. n., Ratliff, J. K. 2020

Abstract

Anticipating post-discharge complications following neurosurgery remains difficult. The LACE index, based on four hospitalization descriptors, stratifies patients by risk of 30-day post-discharge adverse events but has not been validated in a procedure-specific manner in neurosurgery. Our study sought to explore the utility of the LACE index in cranial neurosurgery population and to develop an enhanced model, LACE-Cranial.The Optum Clinformatics Database was used to identify cranial neurosurgery admissions (2004-2017). Procedures were grouped as trauma/hematoma/ICP, open vascular, functional/pain, skull base, tumor, or endovascular. Adverse events were defined as post-discharge death/readmission. LACE-Cranial was developed using a logistic regression framework incorporating an expanded feature set in addition to the original LACE components.A total of 40,431 admissions were included. Predictions of 30-day readmissions was best for skull-base (AUC=0.636) and tumor (AUC=0.63) admissions but was generally poor. Predictive ability of 30-day mortality was best for functional/pain admissions (AUC=0.957) and poorest for trauma/hematoma/ICP admissions (AUC=0.613). Across procedure types except for functional/pain, a high-risk LACE score was associated with higher post-discharge bundled payment costs. Incorporating features identified to contribute independent predictive value, the LACE-Cranial model achieved procedure-specific 30-day mortality AUCs ranging from 0.904 to 0.98. Prediction of 30-day and 90-day readmissions was also improved, with tumor and skull base cases achieving 90-day readmission AUCs of 0.718 and 0.717, respectively.While the unmodified LACE index demonstrates inconsistent classification performance, the enhanced LACE-Cranial model offers excellent prediction of short-term post-discharge mortality across procedure groups and significantly improved anticipation of short-term post-discharge readmissions.

View details for DOI 10.1016/j.wneu.2020.10.103

View details for PubMedID 33127572