CardioExchange Archive

CardioExchange, an NEJM practice community for medical professionals dedicated to improving cardiac patient care, was active from 2009 to 2015. CardioExchange fostered discussion between clinicians from across the globe.

February 15th, 2012

Mortality-Risk Calculators for AMI and Heart Failure Patients

Two mortality-risk calculators ­– one for patients with acute MI and another for those with heart failure – are now available for free at www.mortalityscore.org. The calculators are based on risk models produced by our research group at Yale for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The models are derived from Medicare administrative-claims data for AMI and heart failure that the CMS reports publicly on its Hospital Compare website.

Because the models were designed to predict 30-day mortality as strongly as possible, they have more variables than we might have used in a leaner model designed for rapid clinical use. Nevertheless, the calculator can be populated with information that is easily available on admission. In about 2 minutes, you can enter data on a patient and get an estimate for his or her 30-day mortality risk.

The Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Yale-New Haven Hospital has made the calculators available for free to all comers. There are no advertisements. All of the underlying data have been published in peer-reviewed articles that describe the development and validation of the publicly reported measures (see references below). We have put all of the information in the public domain.

Let us know if you find the calculators useful. And also take a look at our previous calculator on readmission risk.

References:

Circulation 2006 Apr 14; 113:1683.

Circulation 2006 Apr 14; 113:1693.

Categories: General, Heart Failure
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6 Responses to “Mortality-Risk Calculators for AMI and Heart Failure Patients”

  1. Ian Ternouth, MB MRCP FRCP FRACP FCSANZ says:
    February 16, 2012 at 7:27 pm

    Hi. Is there an App for these?

    Competing interests pertaining specifically to this post, comment, or both:
    nil

  2. Jaime Murillo, MD says:
    February 16, 2012 at 8:32 pm

    I loved it. The amount of variables is not as long as I thought. Calculating the risks for surgical mortality using the STS score is even longer.
    And mortalityscore.org is easy to remember
    Congratulations on a great job!

  3. Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM says:
    February 17, 2012 at 12:31 am

    The readmission app is coming… stay tuned.

  4. Mark Dayer, PhD FRCP says:
    February 17, 2012 at 12:32 am

    Very nice – and much easier to use than many calculators. They don’t require obscure values.

    Can I ask – are the raw Medicare data freely available?

  5. Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM says:
    February 18, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    You can request Medicare data through ResDac (www.resdac.org) but these calculators were based on Medicare data that is not in the public domain and is not even owned directly by Medicare, but by their contractors, the Quality Improvement Organizations. We were given access for this single task of building a model – and actually no longer have access to this data set. I wish there were a way to make it available to us and others… it is a peculiar issue and not easy to resolve.

  6. Mark Dayer, PhD FRCP says:
    February 22, 2012 at 12:18 am

    Thank you. I hope in time that a lot more (carefully anonymised) data will be free to access.

    bw

    Mark