Predicting 30-Day Readmissions: Performance of the LACE Index Compared with a Regression Model among General Medicine Patients in Singapore

The LACE index (length of stay, acuity of admission, Charlson comorbidity index, CCI, and number of emergency department visits in preceding 6 months) derived in Canada is simple and may have clinical utility in Singapore to predict readmission risk. We compared the performance of the LACE index with a derived model in identifying 30-day readmissions from a population of general medicine patients in Singapore. Additional variables include patient demographics, comorbidities, clinical and laboratory variables during the index admission, and prior healthcare utilization in the preceding year. 5,862 patients were analysed and 572 patients (9.8%) were readmitted in the 30 days following discharge. Age, CCI, count of surgical procedures during index admission, white cell count, serum albumin, and number of emergency department visits in previous 6 months were significantly associated with 30-day readmission risk. The final logistic regression model had fair discriminative ability c-statistic of 0.650 while the LACE index achieved c-statistic of 0.628 in predicting 30-day readmissions. Our derived model has the advantage of being available early in the admission to identify patients at high risk of readmission for interventions. Additional factors predicting readmission risk and machine learning techniques should be considered to improve model performance

Global Developments in Social Prescribing

Social prescribing is an approach that aims to improve health and well-being. It connects individuals to non-clinical services and supports that address social needs, such as those related to loneliness, housing instability and mental health. At the person level, social prescribing can give individuals the knowledge, skills, motivation and confidence to manage their own health and well-being. At the society level, it can facilitate greater collaboration across health, social, and community sectors to promote integrated care and move beyond the traditional biomedical model of health. While the term social prescribing was first popularised in the UK, this practice has become more prevalent and widely publicised internationally over the last decade. This paper aims to illuminate the ways social prescribing has been conceptualised and implemented across 17 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. We draw from the ‘Beyond the Building Blocks’ framework to describe the essential inputs for adopting social prescribing into policy and practice, related to service delivery; social determinants and household production of health; workforce; leadership and governance; financing, community organisations and societal partnerships; health technology; and information, learning and accountability. Cross-cutting lessons can inform country and regional efforts to tailor social prescribing models to best support local needs

Oral vitamin B12 replacement for the treatment of pernicious anaemia

Many patients with pernicious anaemia are treated with lifelong intramuscular vitamin B12 replacement. As early as the 1950s, there were studies suggesting that oral vitamin B12 replacement may provide adequate absorption. Nevertheless, oral vitamin B12 replacement in patients with pernicious anaemia remains uncommon in clinical practice. The objective of this review is to provide an update on the effectiveness of oral vitamin B12 for the treatment of pernicious anaemia, the recommended dosage and the required frequency of laboratory test and clinical monitoring. Relevant articles were identified by PubMed search from 1 January 1980 to 31 March 2016 and through hand search of relevant reference articles. Two randomised controlled trials, three prospective papers, one systematic review and three clinical reviews fulfilled our inclusion criteria. We found that oral vitamin B12 replacement at 1000mcg daily was adequate to replace vitamin B12 levels in patients with pernicious anaemia. We conclude that oral vitamin B12 is an effective alternative to vitamin B12 intramuscular injections. Patients should be offered this alternative after an informed discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of both treatment options