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Prediction model to identify infectious COVID-19 patients in the emergency department

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2024

Myat Oo Aung*
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Indumathi Venkatachalam
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, SingaporeDepartment of Infectious Disease, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Jean X.Y. Sim
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, SingaporeDepartment of Infectious Disease, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Liang En Wee
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Disease, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
May K. Aung
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Yong Yang
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Edwin P. Conceicao
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Shalvi Arora
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Marcus A.B. Lee
Affiliation:
Emergency Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Chang H. Sia
Affiliation:
Emergency Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Kenneth B.K. Tan
Affiliation:
Emergency Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Moi Lin Ling
Affiliation:
Infection Prevention and Epidemiology Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
*
Corresponding author: Myat Oo Aung; Email: aung.myat.oo@sgh.com.sg

Abstract

Background:

Real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been the gold standard for diagnosing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) but has a lag time for the results. An effective prediction algorithm for infectious COVID-19, utilized at the emergency department (ED), may reduce the risk of healthcare-associated COVID-19.

Objective:

To develop a prototypic prediction model for infectious COVID-19 at the time of presentation to the ED.

Material and methods:

Retrospective cohort study of all adult patients admitted to Singapore General Hospital (SGH) through ED between March 15, 2020, and December 31, 2022, with admission of COVID-19 RT-PCR results. Two prediction models were developed and evaluated using area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) to identify infectious COVID-19 patients (cycle threshold (Ct) of <25).

Results:

Total of 78,687 patients were admitted to SGH through ED during study period. 6,132 of them tested severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 positive on RT-PCR. Nearly 70% (4,226 of 6,132) of the patients had infectious COVID-19 (Ct<25). Model that included demographics, clinical history, symptom and laboratory variables had AUROC of 0.85 with sensitivity and specificity of 80.0% & 72.1% respectively. When antigen rapid test results at ED were available and added to the model for a subset of the study population, AUROC reached 0.97 with sensitivity and specificity of 95.0% and 92.8% respectively. Both models maintained respective sensitivity and specificity results when applied to validation data.

Conclusion:

Clinical predictive models based on available information at ED can be utilized for identification of infectious COVID-19 patients and may enhance infection prevention efforts.

Information

Type
Original Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
Figure 0

Figure 1.Study population.

Figure 1

Table 1.Characteristic of the study population

Figure 2

Table 2.Variables included in prediction models

Figure 3

Figure 2.Area under the curve of different prediction models.

Figure 4

Figure 3.Calculation process of predictive probability and performance for model 1 and model 2.