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Many hospitalized older patients require discharge to postacute facilities. Discharge planning can be delayed when the medical team focuses on acute medical issues without recognizing a patient's rehabilitation needs until late in the hospital course. Researchers evaluated a retrospective cohort of ≈750 general medicine and neurological patients to determine the predictive ability of a simple decision tree that combined patients' age and mobility scores to identify needs for postacute care. Nurses completed the Activity Measure for Postacute Care Inpatient Mobility Short Form — six questions designed to evaluate need for assistance.
The decision tree's sensitivity was 58%, specificity was 84%, positive likelihood ratio was 3.6, and negative …