EHMRG Calculator

Most patients with heart failure who present to an emergency department are admitted due to the seriousness of this disease. As a result, it is one of the world’s top causes of hospitalization.

What if we could better identify patients who are very likely to be stable in the short term and could be discharged safely home? Or better identify patients who are at higher risk of poor outcomes who should be admitted even though they may have responded well to initial treatment?

EHMRG

Such questions are at the heart of our Emergency Heart Failure Mortality Risk Grade (EHMRG) calculator, which emergency physicians, cardiologists and internal medicine specialists can use to decide whether to admit or discharge patients.

A step toward personalized medicine

EHMRG was first designed to predict seven-day mortality – recommending admission for any heart failure patient whose risk of dying in one week reached a certain threshold. An EHMRG tool with a more complex algorithm capable of predicting 30-day mortality is currently being validated.

This tool can empower doctors to discharge each low-risk patient quickly. This improves their quality of life, frees beds for higher-risk patients, and saves significant health-care costs. It can also be used to help educate patients about their risk of going home that day.

EHMRG is a tool that brings more precise estimates of risk to the emergency department and, as a result, more personalized approach to patient care. The risk calculator, first proven effective in a Circulation study, is developed by Dr. Douglas Lee, our Chair in Heart Failure Outcomes.