Exploring the Utility of the Modified Hospitalized-Patient One-Year Mortality Risk Score to Trigger Referrals to Palliative Care for Inpatients With Cancer

Background: Estimating prognosis can be a barrier to timely palliative care involvement. The modified Hospitalized-patient One-year Mortality Risk (mHOMR) score uses hospital admission data to calculate the risk of death within 12 months and may be a useful tool to trigger a referral to palliative care. Methods: The mHOMR tool was retrospectively applied to consecutive acute admissions to a quaternary cancer center in Toronto, Canada from March 1 to May 31, 2018. The study aimed to investigate the association between dichotomized mHOMR scores (the cohort median score of 0.27 and the developer-recommended score of 0.21) and the risk of death, and whether these could be used to identify patients who may benefit from timely palliative care involvement. Results: Of 269 inpatients, 87 were elective admissions and excluded from further analyses. At the median mHOMR score of 0.27, 91/182 patients (50%) were categorized as high-risk of death within 12 months (mHOMR+), 53 (58%) were referred to palliative care. At the lower cut-off of 0.21, 103 patients were mHOMR+, of whom 57 (55.3%) were referred to palliative care. The higher mHOMR was significantly associated with mortality (29.7% mHOMR− vs. 39.8% mHOMR+ at 12 months, log-rank p < 0.05). The association between the developer-recommended mHOMR cut-off (≥ 0.21) and mortality was not significant (p = 0.15). Conclusions: A higher mHOMR score was significantly associated with the risk of mortality in patients with advanced cancer. However, the developer-recommended mHOMR cut-off of 0.21 failed to identify a statistically significant difference between patients with advanced cancer at low versus high scores. While mHOMR may be a useful tool to augment clinical judgment and identify inpatients with advanced cancer at high risk of death, who in turn may benefit from referral to palliative care, the optimal mHOMR cutoff may warrant adjustment for this population.