Risk stratification for death and all-cause hospitalization in heart failure clinic outpatients

Background Most heart failure (HF) risk stratification models were developed for inpatient use, and available outpatient models use a complex set of variables. We hypothesized that routinely collected clinical data could predict the 6-month risk of death and all-cause medical hospitalization in HF clinic outpatients. Methods and Results Using a quality improvement database and multivariable Cox modeling, we derived the Heart Failure Patient Severity Index (HFPSI) in the University of Michigan HF clinic (UM cohort, n = 1,536; 314 reached primary outcome). We externally validated the HFPSI in the Ann Arbor Veterans' Affairs HF clinic (VA cohort, n = 445; 106 outcomes) and explored “real-time” HFPSI use (VA-RT cohort, n = 486; 141 outcomes) by tracking VA patients for 6 months from their most recently calculated HFPSI, rather than using an arbitrary start date for the cohort. The HFPSI model included blood urea nitrogen, B-type natriuretic peptide, New York Heart Association class, diabetes status, history of atrial fibrillation/flutter, and all-cause hospitalization within the prior 1 and 2 to 6 months. The concordance c statistics in the UM/VA/VA-RT cohorts were 0.71/0.68/0.74. Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank testing demonstrated excellent risk stratification, particularly between a large, low-risk group (40% of patients, 6-month event rates in the UM/VA/VA-RT cohorts 8%/12%/12%) and a small, high-risk group (10% of patients, 6-month event rates in the UM/VA/VA-RT cohorts 57%/58%/79%). Conclusions The HFPSI uses readily available data to predict the 6-month risk of death and/or all-cause medical hospitalization in HF clinic outpatients and could potentially help allocate specialized HF resources within health systems.