Predicting Falls in People Aged 65 Years and Older from Insurance Claims.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Accidental falls among people aged 65 years and older caused approximately 2,700,000 injuries, 27,000 deaths, and cost more than 34 billion dollars in the US annually in recent years. Here, we derive and validate a predictive model for falls based on a retrospective cohort of those 65 years and older.

Methods

Insurance claims from a 1-year observational period were used to predict a fall-related claim in the following 2 years. The predictive model takes into account a person's age, sex, prescriptions, and diagnoses. Through random assignment, half of the people had their claims used to derive the model, while the remaining people had their claims used to validate the model.

Results

Of 120,881 individuals with Aetna health insurance coverage, 12,431 (10.3%)

SUBMITTER: Homer ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5441951 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature