The Ottawa COPD Risk Scale — which assessed a combination of 10 factors — ascertained which patients with COPD were more likely to have short-term serious outcomes better than current practice, according to findings recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“Unfortunately, there is little evidence to inform disposition decisions [for COPD exacerbations] by physicians. Existing guidelines for disposition decisions are consensus-based and have not been validated. Several authors have developed risk-stratification scores for COPD exacerbations; however, most are limited by predicting death only among admitted patients or have not been validated clinically in real time in the emergency department,” Ian G. Stiell, MD, MSc, of the departments of medicine and emergency medicine at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada and colleagues wrote.