Using Machine Learning to Predict Likelihood and Cause of Readmission After Hospitalization for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of hospital readmissions. Few existing tools use electronic health record (EHR) data to forecast patients' readmission risk during index hospitalizations.

Objective: We used machine learning and in-hospital data to model 90-day risk for and cause of readmission among inpatients with acute exacerbations of COPD (AE-COPD).