• Delphine Douillet, Jérémie Riou, François Morin, Rafaël Mahieu, Anthony Chauvin, Stéphane Gennai, Lionel Ferrant, Raphaëlle Lopez, Mustapha Sebbane, Gaëtan Plantefeve, Christian Brice, Coralie Cayeux, Dominique Savary, Thomas Moumneh, Andrea Penaloza, and Pierre Marie Roy.
• Emergency Department, CHU Angers, University of Angers, CHU Angers, Angers, France delphinedouillet@gmail.com.
• Emerg Med J. 2024 Mar 21; 41 (4): 218225218-225.

BackgroundThe HOME-CoV (Hospitalisation or Outpatient ManagEment of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection) score is a validated list of uniquely clinical criteria indicating which patients with probable or proven COVID-19 can be treated at home. The aim of this study was to optimise the score to improve its ability to discriminate between patients who do and do not need admission.MethodsA revised HOME-CoV score was derived using data from a previous prospective multicentre study which evaluated the original Home-CoV score. Patients with proven or probable COVID-19 attending 34 EDs in France, Monaco and Belgium between April and May 2020 were included. The population was split into a derivation and validation sample corresponding to the observational and interventional phases of the original study. The main outcome was non-invasive or invasive ventilation or all-cause death within 7 days following inclusion. Two threshold values were defined using a sensitivity of >0.9 and a specificity of >0.9 to identify low-risk and high-risk patients, respectively. The revised HOME-CoV score was then validated by retrospectively applying it to patients in the same EDs with proven or probable COVID-19 during the interventional phase. The revised HOME-CoV score was also tested against original HOME-CoV, qCSI, qSOFA, CRB65 and SMART-COP in this validation cohort.ResultsThere were 1696 patients in the derivation cohort, of whom 65 (3.8%) required non-invasive ventilation or mechanical ventilation or died within 7 days and 1304 patients in the validation cohort, of whom 22 (1.7%) had a progression of illness. The revised score included seven clinical criteria. The area under the curve (AUC) was 87.6 (95% CI 84.7 to 90.6). The cut-offs to define low-risk and high-risk patients were <2 and >3, respectively. In the validation cohort, the AUC was 85.8 (95% CI 80.6 to 91.0). A score of <2 qualified 73% of patients as low risk with a sensitivity of 0.77 (0.55-0.92) and a negative predictive value of 0.99 (0.99-1.00).ConclusionThe revised HOME-CoV score, which does not require laboratory testing, may allow accurate risk stratification and safely qualify a significant proportion of patients with probable or proven COVID-19 for home treatment.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

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