Caring About Prognosis

Prognostication continues to be a challenge to the clinician despite over 100 prognostic indices that have been developed during the past few decades to inform clinical practice and medical decision making.[1] Physicians are not accurate in prognostication of patients' risk of death and tend to overestimate survival.[2, 3] In addition, many physicians do not feel comfortable offering a prognosis to patients, despite patients' wishes to be informed.[4, 5] Regardless of the prevalence in the literature and value in improving physicians' prognostic accuracy, prognostic indices of survival are not regularly utilized in the hospital setting. Prognostic tools available for providers are often complicated and may require data about patients that are not readily available.[6, 7, 8] Prognostic indices may be too specific to a patient population, too difficult to remember, or too time consuming to use. A simple, rapid, and practical prognostic index is important in the hospital setting to assist in identifying patients at high risk of death so that primary palliative interventions can be incorporated into the plan of care early in the hospital stay. Patient and family education, advance care planning, formulating the plan of care based on patientfamily goals, and improved resource utilization could be better executed by more accurate risk of death prediction on hospital admission.

The CARING criteria are the only prognostic index to our knowledge that evaluates a patient's risk of death in the next year, with information readily available at the time of hospital admission (Table 1).[9] The CARING criteria are a unique prognostic tool: (1) CARING is a mnemonic acronym, making it more user friendly to the clinician. (2) The 5 prognostic indicators are readily available from the patient's chart on admission; gathering further data by patient or caretaker interviews or by obtaining laboratory data is not needed. (3) The timing for application of the tool on admission to the hospital is an ideal opportunity to intervene and introduce palliative interventions early on the hospital stay. The CARING criteria were developed and validated in a Veteran's Administration hospital setting by Fischer et al.[9] We sought to validate the CARING criteria in a broader patient populationmedical and surgical patients from a tertiary referral university hospital setting and a safety‐net hospital setting.

METHODS

RESULTS

There were a total of 1064 patients admitted to the medical and surgical services during the study period568 patients at DHH and 496 patients at UCH. Sample characteristics of each individual hospital cohort and the entire combined study cohort are detailed in Table 2. Overall, slightly over half the population were male, with a mean age of 50 years, and the ethnic breakdown roughly reflects the population in Denver. A total of 36.5% (n=388) of the study population met 1 of the CARING criteria, and 12.6% (n=134 among 1063 excluding 1 without an admit date) died within 1 year of the index hospitalization. These were younger and healthier patients compared to the VA sample used in developing the CARING criteria.

Reliability testing demonstrated excellent inter‐rater reliability. Kappa for each criterion is as follows: (1) primary diagnosis of cancer=1.0, (2) 2 admissions to the hospital in the past year=0.91, (3) resident in a nursing home=1.0, (4) ICU admission with MOF=1.0, and (5) 2 noncancer hospice guidelines=0.78.

This study aimed to validate the CARING criteria⁹; therefore, all original individual CARING criterion were included in the validation logistic regression models. The 1 exception to this was in the university hospital study cohort, where the ICU criterion was excluded from the model due to small sample size and quasiseparation in the model. The model results are presented in Table 3 for the individual hospitals and combined study cohort.

In the safety‐net hospital, admission to the hospital with a primary diagnosis related to cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, ICU admission with MOF, and age by category all were significant predictors of 1‐year mortality. In the university hospital cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age by category were predictive of 1‐year mortality. Finally, in the entire study cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, ICU with MOF, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age were all predictive of 1‐year mortality. Parameter estimates were similar in 3 of the criteria compared to the VA setting. Differences in patient characteristics may have caused the differences in the estimates. Gender was additionally tested but not significant in any model. One‐year survival was significantly lower for those who met 1 of the CARING criteria versus those who did not (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Based on the framework from the original CARING criteria analysis, a scoring rule was developed using the regression results of this validation cohort. To predict a high probability of 1‐year mortality, sensitivity was set to 58% and specificity was set at 86% (error rate=17%). Medium to high probability was set with a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 72% (error rate=28%). The coefficients from the regression model of the entire study cohort were converted to scores for each of the CARING criteria. The scores are as follows: 0.5 points for admission from a nursing home, 1 point for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness, 10 points for primary diagnosis of cancer, 10 points for ICU admission with MOF, and 14 points for 2 noncancer hospice guidelines. For every age category increase, 2 points are assigned so that 0 points for age <55 years, 2 points for ages 56 to 65 years, 4 points for ages 66 to 75 years, and 6 points for >75 years. Points for individual risk factors were proportional to s (ie, log odds) in the logistic regression model for death at 1 year. Although no linear transformation exists between s and probabilities (of death at 1 year), the aggregated points for combinations of risk factors shown in Table 4 follow the probabilities in an approximately linear fashion, so that different degrees of risk of death can be represented contiguously (as highlighted by differently shaded regions in the scoring matrix) (Table 4). The scoring matrix allows for quick identification for patients at high risk for 1‐year mortality. In this non‐VA setting with healthier patients, low risk is defined at a lower probability threshold (0.1) compared to the VA setting (0.175).

DISCUSSION

The CARING criteria are a practical prognostic tool that can be easily and rapidly applied to patients admitted to the hospital to estimate risk of death in 1 year, with the goal of identifying patients who may benefit most from incorporating palliative interventions into their plan of care. This study validated the CARING criteria in a tertiary referral university hospital and safety‐net hospital setting, demonstrating applicability in a much broader population than the VA hospital of the original CARING criteria study. The population studied represented a younger population by over 10 years, a more equitable proportion of males to females, a broader ethnic diversity, and lower 1‐year deaths rates than the original study. Despite the broader representation of the population, the significance of each of the individual CARING criterion was maintained except for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness (admission from a nursing home did not meet significance in either study as a sole criterion). As with the original study, meeting 2 of the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines demonstrated the highest risk of 1‐year mortality following index hospitalization, followed by primary diagnosis of cancer and ICU admission with MOF. Advancing age, also similar to the original study, conferred increased risk across the criterion.

Hospitalists could be an effective target for utilizing the CARING criteria because they are frequently the first‐line providers in the hospital setting. With the national shortage of palliative care specialists, hospitalists need to be able to identify when a patient has a limited life expectancy so they will be better equipped to make clinical decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care. With the realization that not addressing advance care planning and patient goals of care may be considered medical errors, primary palliative care skills become alarmingly more important as priorities for hospitalists to obtain and feel comfortable using in daily practice.

The CARING criteria are directly applicable to patients who are seen by hospitalists. Other prognostic indices have focused on select patient populations, such as the elderly,[10, 11, 12] require collection of data that are not readily available on admission or would not otherwise be obtained,[10, 13] or apply to patients post‐hospital discharge, thereby missing the opportunity to make an impact earlier in the disease trajectory and incorporate palliative care into the hospital plan of care when key discussions about goals of care and preferences should be encouraged.

Additionally, the CARING criteria could easily be incorporated as a trigger for palliative care consults on hospital admission. Palliative care consults tend to happen late in a hospital stay, limiting the effectiveness of the palliative care team. A trigger system for hospitalists and other primary providers on hospital admission would lend to more effective timing of palliative measures being incorporated into the plan of care. Palliative care consults would not only be initiated earlier, but could be targeted for the more complex and sick patients with the highest risk of death in the next year.

In the time‐pressured environment, the presence of any 1 of the CARING criteria can act as a trigger to begin incorporating primary palliative care measures into the plan of care. The admitting hospitalist provider (ie, physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant) could access the CARING criteria through an electronic health record prompt when admitting patients. When a more detailed assessment of mortality risk is helpful, the hospitalist can use the scoring matrix, which combines age with the individual criterion to calculate patients at medium or high risk of death within 1 year. Limited resources can then be directed to the patients with the greatest need. Patients with a focused care need, such as advance care planning or hospice referral, can be directed to the social worker or case manager. More complicated patients may be referred to a specialty palliative care team.

Several limitations to this study are recognized, including the small sample size of patients meeting criterion for ICU with MOF in the academic center study cohort. The patient data were collected during a transition time when the university hospital moved to a new campus, resulting in an ICU at each campus that housed patients with differing levels of illness severity, which may have contributed to the lower acuity ICU patient observed. Although we advocate the simplicity of the CARING criteria, the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines are more complicated, as they incorporates 8 broad categories of chronic illness. The hospice guidelines may not be general knowledge to the hospitalist or other primary providers. ePrognosis (http://eprognosis.ucsf.edu/) has a Web‐based calculator for the CARING criteria, including a link referencing the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines. Alternatively, providing a pocket card, smart phone or tablet app, or electronic health record tool containing the NHPCO criteria and CARING criteria could easily overcome this gap in knowledge. Finally, the reviewer agreement was not 100% for each criterion due to personal interpretation differences in the criterion. NHPCO criterion had the lowest kappa, yet it still was 0.78 and achieved a highly acceptable level of agreement.

CONCLUSION

The CARING criteria are a simple, practical prognostic tool predictive of death within 1 year that has been validated in a broad population of hospitalized patients. The criteria hold up in a younger, healthier population that is more diverse by age, gender, and ethnicity than the VA population. With ready access to critical prognostic information on hospital admission, clinicians will be better informed to make decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care.

Prognostication continues to be a challenge to the clinician despite over 100 prognostic indices that have been developed during the past few decades to inform clinical practice and medical decision making.[1] Physicians are not accurate in prognostication of patients' risk of death and tend to overestimate survival.[2, 3] In addition, many physicians do not feel comfortable offering a prognosis to patients, despite patients' wishes to be informed.[4, 5] Regardless of the prevalence in the literature and value in improving physicians' prognostic accuracy, prognostic indices of survival are not regularly utilized in the hospital setting. Prognostic tools available for providers are often complicated and may require data about patients that are not readily available.[6, 7, 8] Prognostic indices may be too specific to a patient population, too difficult to remember, or too time consuming to use. A simple, rapid, and practical prognostic index is important in the hospital setting to assist in identifying patients at high risk of death so that primary palliative interventions can be incorporated into the plan of care early in the hospital stay. Patient and family education, advance care planning, formulating the plan of care based on patientfamily goals, and improved resource utilization could be better executed by more accurate risk of death prediction on hospital admission.

The CARING criteria are the only prognostic index to our knowledge that evaluates a patient's risk of death in the next year, with information readily available at the time of hospital admission (Table 1).[9] The CARING criteria are a unique prognostic tool: (1) CARING is a mnemonic acronym, making it more user friendly to the clinician. (2) The 5 prognostic indicators are readily available from the patient's chart on admission; gathering further data by patient or caretaker interviews or by obtaining laboratory data is not needed. (3) The timing for application of the tool on admission to the hospital is an ideal opportunity to intervene and introduce palliative interventions early on the hospital stay. The CARING criteria were developed and validated in a Veteran's Administration hospital setting by Fischer et al.[9] We sought to validate the CARING criteria in a broader patient populationmedical and surgical patients from a tertiary referral university hospital setting and a safety‐net hospital setting.

METHODS

RESULTS

There were a total of 1064 patients admitted to the medical and surgical services during the study period568 patients at DHH and 496 patients at UCH. Sample characteristics of each individual hospital cohort and the entire combined study cohort are detailed in Table 2. Overall, slightly over half the population were male, with a mean age of 50 years, and the ethnic breakdown roughly reflects the population in Denver. A total of 36.5% (n=388) of the study population met 1 of the CARING criteria, and 12.6% (n=134 among 1063 excluding 1 without an admit date) died within 1 year of the index hospitalization. These were younger and healthier patients compared to the VA sample used in developing the CARING criteria.

Reliability testing demonstrated excellent inter‐rater reliability. Kappa for each criterion is as follows: (1) primary diagnosis of cancer=1.0, (2) 2 admissions to the hospital in the past year=0.91, (3) resident in a nursing home=1.0, (4) ICU admission with MOF=1.0, and (5) 2 noncancer hospice guidelines=0.78.

This study aimed to validate the CARING criteria⁹; therefore, all original individual CARING criterion were included in the validation logistic regression models. The 1 exception to this was in the university hospital study cohort, where the ICU criterion was excluded from the model due to small sample size and quasiseparation in the model. The model results are presented in Table 3 for the individual hospitals and combined study cohort.

In the safety‐net hospital, admission to the hospital with a primary diagnosis related to cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, ICU admission with MOF, and age by category all were significant predictors of 1‐year mortality. In the university hospital cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age by category were predictive of 1‐year mortality. Finally, in the entire study cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, ICU with MOF, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age were all predictive of 1‐year mortality. Parameter estimates were similar in 3 of the criteria compared to the VA setting. Differences in patient characteristics may have caused the differences in the estimates. Gender was additionally tested but not significant in any model. One‐year survival was significantly lower for those who met 1 of the CARING criteria versus those who did not (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Based on the framework from the original CARING criteria analysis, a scoring rule was developed using the regression results of this validation cohort. To predict a high probability of 1‐year mortality, sensitivity was set to 58% and specificity was set at 86% (error rate=17%). Medium to high probability was set with a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 72% (error rate=28%). The coefficients from the regression model of the entire study cohort were converted to scores for each of the CARING criteria. The scores are as follows: 0.5 points for admission from a nursing home, 1 point for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness, 10 points for primary diagnosis of cancer, 10 points for ICU admission with MOF, and 14 points for 2 noncancer hospice guidelines. For every age category increase, 2 points are assigned so that 0 points for age <55 years, 2 points for ages 56 to 65 years, 4 points for ages 66 to 75 years, and 6 points for >75 years. Points for individual risk factors were proportional to s (ie, log odds) in the logistic regression model for death at 1 year. Although no linear transformation exists between s and probabilities (of death at 1 year), the aggregated points for combinations of risk factors shown in Table 4 follow the probabilities in an approximately linear fashion, so that different degrees of risk of death can be represented contiguously (as highlighted by differently shaded regions in the scoring matrix) (Table 4). The scoring matrix allows for quick identification for patients at high risk for 1‐year mortality. In this non‐VA setting with healthier patients, low risk is defined at a lower probability threshold (0.1) compared to the VA setting (0.175).

DISCUSSION

The CARING criteria are a practical prognostic tool that can be easily and rapidly applied to patients admitted to the hospital to estimate risk of death in 1 year, with the goal of identifying patients who may benefit most from incorporating palliative interventions into their plan of care. This study validated the CARING criteria in a tertiary referral university hospital and safety‐net hospital setting, demonstrating applicability in a much broader population than the VA hospital of the original CARING criteria study. The population studied represented a younger population by over 10 years, a more equitable proportion of males to females, a broader ethnic diversity, and lower 1‐year deaths rates than the original study. Despite the broader representation of the population, the significance of each of the individual CARING criterion was maintained except for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness (admission from a nursing home did not meet significance in either study as a sole criterion). As with the original study, meeting 2 of the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines demonstrated the highest risk of 1‐year mortality following index hospitalization, followed by primary diagnosis of cancer and ICU admission with MOF. Advancing age, also similar to the original study, conferred increased risk across the criterion.

Hospitalists could be an effective target for utilizing the CARING criteria because they are frequently the first‐line providers in the hospital setting. With the national shortage of palliative care specialists, hospitalists need to be able to identify when a patient has a limited life expectancy so they will be better equipped to make clinical decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care. With the realization that not addressing advance care planning and patient goals of care may be considered medical errors, primary palliative care skills become alarmingly more important as priorities for hospitalists to obtain and feel comfortable using in daily practice.

The CARING criteria are directly applicable to patients who are seen by hospitalists. Other prognostic indices have focused on select patient populations, such as the elderly,[10, 11, 12] require collection of data that are not readily available on admission or would not otherwise be obtained,[10, 13] or apply to patients post‐hospital discharge, thereby missing the opportunity to make an impact earlier in the disease trajectory and incorporate palliative care into the hospital plan of care when key discussions about goals of care and preferences should be encouraged.

Additionally, the CARING criteria could easily be incorporated as a trigger for palliative care consults on hospital admission. Palliative care consults tend to happen late in a hospital stay, limiting the effectiveness of the palliative care team. A trigger system for hospitalists and other primary providers on hospital admission would lend to more effective timing of palliative measures being incorporated into the plan of care. Palliative care consults would not only be initiated earlier, but could be targeted for the more complex and sick patients with the highest risk of death in the next year.

In the time‐pressured environment, the presence of any 1 of the CARING criteria can act as a trigger to begin incorporating primary palliative care measures into the plan of care. The admitting hospitalist provider (ie, physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant) could access the CARING criteria through an electronic health record prompt when admitting patients. When a more detailed assessment of mortality risk is helpful, the hospitalist can use the scoring matrix, which combines age with the individual criterion to calculate patients at medium or high risk of death within 1 year. Limited resources can then be directed to the patients with the greatest need. Patients with a focused care need, such as advance care planning or hospice referral, can be directed to the social worker or case manager. More complicated patients may be referred to a specialty palliative care team.

Several limitations to this study are recognized, including the small sample size of patients meeting criterion for ICU with MOF in the academic center study cohort. The patient data were collected during a transition time when the university hospital moved to a new campus, resulting in an ICU at each campus that housed patients with differing levels of illness severity, which may have contributed to the lower acuity ICU patient observed. Although we advocate the simplicity of the CARING criteria, the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines are more complicated, as they incorporates 8 broad categories of chronic illness. The hospice guidelines may not be general knowledge to the hospitalist or other primary providers. ePrognosis (http://eprognosis.ucsf.edu/) has a Web‐based calculator for the CARING criteria, including a link referencing the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines. Alternatively, providing a pocket card, smart phone or tablet app, or electronic health record tool containing the NHPCO criteria and CARING criteria could easily overcome this gap in knowledge. Finally, the reviewer agreement was not 100% for each criterion due to personal interpretation differences in the criterion. NHPCO criterion had the lowest kappa, yet it still was 0.78 and achieved a highly acceptable level of agreement.

CONCLUSION

The CARING criteria are a simple, practical prognostic tool predictive of death within 1 year that has been validated in a broad population of hospitalized patients. The criteria hold up in a younger, healthier population that is more diverse by age, gender, and ethnicity than the VA population. With ready access to critical prognostic information on hospital admission, clinicians will be better informed to make decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care.

Prognostication continues to be a challenge to the clinician despite over 100 prognostic indices that have been developed during the past few decades to inform clinical practice and medical decision making.[1] Physicians are not accurate in prognostication of patients' risk of death and tend to overestimate survival.[2, 3] In addition, many physicians do not feel comfortable offering a prognosis to patients, despite patients' wishes to be informed.[4, 5] Regardless of the prevalence in the literature and value in improving physicians' prognostic accuracy, prognostic indices of survival are not regularly utilized in the hospital setting. Prognostic tools available for providers are often complicated and may require data about patients that are not readily available.[6, 7, 8] Prognostic indices may be too specific to a patient population, too difficult to remember, or too time consuming to use. A simple, rapid, and practical prognostic index is important in the hospital setting to assist in identifying patients at high risk of death so that primary palliative interventions can be incorporated into the plan of care early in the hospital stay. Patient and family education, advance care planning, formulating the plan of care based on patientfamily goals, and improved resource utilization could be better executed by more accurate risk of death prediction on hospital admission.

The CARING criteria are the only prognostic index to our knowledge that evaluates a patient's risk of death in the next year, with information readily available at the time of hospital admission (Table 1).[9] The CARING criteria are a unique prognostic tool: (1) CARING is a mnemonic acronym, making it more user friendly to the clinician. (2) The 5 prognostic indicators are readily available from the patient's chart on admission; gathering further data by patient or caretaker interviews or by obtaining laboratory data is not needed. (3) The timing for application of the tool on admission to the hospital is an ideal opportunity to intervene and introduce palliative interventions early on the hospital stay. The CARING criteria were developed and validated in a Veteran's Administration hospital setting by Fischer et al.[9] We sought to validate the CARING criteria in a broader patient populationmedical and surgical patients from a tertiary referral university hospital setting and a safety‐net hospital setting.

METHODS

RESULTS

There were a total of 1064 patients admitted to the medical and surgical services during the study period568 patients at DHH and 496 patients at UCH. Sample characteristics of each individual hospital cohort and the entire combined study cohort are detailed in Table 2. Overall, slightly over half the population were male, with a mean age of 50 years, and the ethnic breakdown roughly reflects the population in Denver. A total of 36.5% (n=388) of the study population met 1 of the CARING criteria, and 12.6% (n=134 among 1063 excluding 1 without an admit date) died within 1 year of the index hospitalization. These were younger and healthier patients compared to the VA sample used in developing the CARING criteria.

Reliability testing demonstrated excellent inter‐rater reliability. Kappa for each criterion is as follows: (1) primary diagnosis of cancer=1.0, (2) 2 admissions to the hospital in the past year=0.91, (3) resident in a nursing home=1.0, (4) ICU admission with MOF=1.0, and (5) 2 noncancer hospice guidelines=0.78.

This study aimed to validate the CARING criteria⁹; therefore, all original individual CARING criterion were included in the validation logistic regression models. The 1 exception to this was in the university hospital study cohort, where the ICU criterion was excluded from the model due to small sample size and quasiseparation in the model. The model results are presented in Table 3 for the individual hospitals and combined study cohort.

In the safety‐net hospital, admission to the hospital with a primary diagnosis related to cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, ICU admission with MOF, and age by category all were significant predictors of 1‐year mortality. In the university hospital cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age by category were predictive of 1‐year mortality. Finally, in the entire study cohort, primary diagnosis of cancer, ICU with MOF, 2 noncancer hospice guidelines, and age were all predictive of 1‐year mortality. Parameter estimates were similar in 3 of the criteria compared to the VA setting. Differences in patient characteristics may have caused the differences in the estimates. Gender was additionally tested but not significant in any model. One‐year survival was significantly lower for those who met 1 of the CARING criteria versus those who did not (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Based on the framework from the original CARING criteria analysis, a scoring rule was developed using the regression results of this validation cohort. To predict a high probability of 1‐year mortality, sensitivity was set to 58% and specificity was set at 86% (error rate=17%). Medium to high probability was set with a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 72% (error rate=28%). The coefficients from the regression model of the entire study cohort were converted to scores for each of the CARING criteria. The scores are as follows: 0.5 points for admission from a nursing home, 1 point for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness, 10 points for primary diagnosis of cancer, 10 points for ICU admission with MOF, and 14 points for 2 noncancer hospice guidelines. For every age category increase, 2 points are assigned so that 0 points for age <55 years, 2 points for ages 56 to 65 years, 4 points for ages 66 to 75 years, and 6 points for >75 years. Points for individual risk factors were proportional to s (ie, log odds) in the logistic regression model for death at 1 year. Although no linear transformation exists between s and probabilities (of death at 1 year), the aggregated points for combinations of risk factors shown in Table 4 follow the probabilities in an approximately linear fashion, so that different degrees of risk of death can be represented contiguously (as highlighted by differently shaded regions in the scoring matrix) (Table 4). The scoring matrix allows for quick identification for patients at high risk for 1‐year mortality. In this non‐VA setting with healthier patients, low risk is defined at a lower probability threshold (0.1) compared to the VA setting (0.175).

DISCUSSION

The CARING criteria are a practical prognostic tool that can be easily and rapidly applied to patients admitted to the hospital to estimate risk of death in 1 year, with the goal of identifying patients who may benefit most from incorporating palliative interventions into their plan of care. This study validated the CARING criteria in a tertiary referral university hospital and safety‐net hospital setting, demonstrating applicability in a much broader population than the VA hospital of the original CARING criteria study. The population studied represented a younger population by over 10 years, a more equitable proportion of males to females, a broader ethnic diversity, and lower 1‐year deaths rates than the original study. Despite the broader representation of the population, the significance of each of the individual CARING criterion was maintained except for 2 hospital admissions in the past year for a chronic illness (admission from a nursing home did not meet significance in either study as a sole criterion). As with the original study, meeting 2 of the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines demonstrated the highest risk of 1‐year mortality following index hospitalization, followed by primary diagnosis of cancer and ICU admission with MOF. Advancing age, also similar to the original study, conferred increased risk across the criterion.

Hospitalists could be an effective target for utilizing the CARING criteria because they are frequently the first‐line providers in the hospital setting. With the national shortage of palliative care specialists, hospitalists need to be able to identify when a patient has a limited life expectancy so they will be better equipped to make clinical decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care. With the realization that not addressing advance care planning and patient goals of care may be considered medical errors, primary palliative care skills become alarmingly more important as priorities for hospitalists to obtain and feel comfortable using in daily practice.

The CARING criteria are directly applicable to patients who are seen by hospitalists. Other prognostic indices have focused on select patient populations, such as the elderly,[10, 11, 12] require collection of data that are not readily available on admission or would not otherwise be obtained,[10, 13] or apply to patients post‐hospital discharge, thereby missing the opportunity to make an impact earlier in the disease trajectory and incorporate palliative care into the hospital plan of care when key discussions about goals of care and preferences should be encouraged.

Additionally, the CARING criteria could easily be incorporated as a trigger for palliative care consults on hospital admission. Palliative care consults tend to happen late in a hospital stay, limiting the effectiveness of the palliative care team. A trigger system for hospitalists and other primary providers on hospital admission would lend to more effective timing of palliative measures being incorporated into the plan of care. Palliative care consults would not only be initiated earlier, but could be targeted for the more complex and sick patients with the highest risk of death in the next year.

In the time‐pressured environment, the presence of any 1 of the CARING criteria can act as a trigger to begin incorporating primary palliative care measures into the plan of care. The admitting hospitalist provider (ie, physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant) could access the CARING criteria through an electronic health record prompt when admitting patients. When a more detailed assessment of mortality risk is helpful, the hospitalist can use the scoring matrix, which combines age with the individual criterion to calculate patients at medium or high risk of death within 1 year. Limited resources can then be directed to the patients with the greatest need. Patients with a focused care need, such as advance care planning or hospice referral, can be directed to the social worker or case manager. More complicated patients may be referred to a specialty palliative care team.

Several limitations to this study are recognized, including the small sample size of patients meeting criterion for ICU with MOF in the academic center study cohort. The patient data were collected during a transition time when the university hospital moved to a new campus, resulting in an ICU at each campus that housed patients with differing levels of illness severity, which may have contributed to the lower acuity ICU patient observed. Although we advocate the simplicity of the CARING criteria, the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines are more complicated, as they incorporates 8 broad categories of chronic illness. The hospice guidelines may not be general knowledge to the hospitalist or other primary providers. ePrognosis (http://eprognosis.ucsf.edu/) has a Web‐based calculator for the CARING criteria, including a link referencing the NHPCO noncancer hospice guidelines. Alternatively, providing a pocket card, smart phone or tablet app, or electronic health record tool containing the NHPCO criteria and CARING criteria could easily overcome this gap in knowledge. Finally, the reviewer agreement was not 100% for each criterion due to personal interpretation differences in the criterion. NHPCO criterion had the lowest kappa, yet it still was 0.78 and achieved a highly acceptable level of agreement.

CONCLUSION

The CARING criteria are a simple, practical prognostic tool predictive of death within 1 year that has been validated in a broad population of hospitalized patients. The criteria hold up in a younger, healthier population that is more diverse by age, gender, and ethnicity than the VA population. With ready access to critical prognostic information on hospital admission, clinicians will be better informed to make decisions that are aligned with their patients' values, preferences, and goals of care.