Machine learning and LACE index for predicting 30-day readmissions after heart failure hospitalization in elderly patients

Machine learning (ML) techniques may improve readmission prediction performance in heart failure (HF) patients. This study aimed to assess the ability of ML algorithms to predict unplanned all-cause 30-day readmissions in HF elderly patients, and to compare them with conventional LACE (Length of hospitalization, Acuity, Comorbidities, Emergency department visits) index. All patients aged ≥ 65 years discharged alive between 2010 and 2019 after a hospitalization for acute HF were included in this retrospective cohort study. We applied MICE (Multivariate Imputation via Chained Equations) method to obtain a balanced, fully valued dataset and LASSO (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) algorithm to get the most significant features. Training (80% of records) and test (20%) cohorts were randomly selected. Study population: 3079 patients, 394 (12.8%) presented at least one readmission within 30 days, and 2685 (87.2%) did not. In the test cohort AUCs (IC95%) of XGBoost, Ada Boost Classifier, Random forest, and Gradient Boosting, and LACE Index were: 0.803 (0.734–0.872), 0.782 (0.711–0.854), 0.776 (0.703–0.848), 0.786 (0.715–0.857), and 0.504 (0.414–0.594), respectively, for predicting readmissions. A SHAP analysis was performed to offer a breakdown of the ML variables associated with readmission. Positive and negative predicting values estimates of the different ML models and LACE index were also provided, for several values of readmission rate prevalence. Among elderly patients, the rate of all-cause unplanned 30-day readmissions after hospitalization due to an acute HF was high. ML models performed better than the conventional LACE index for predicting readmissions. ML models can be proposed as promising tools for the identification of subjects at high risk of hospitalization in this clinical setting, enabling care teams to target interventions for improving overall clinical outcomes.