Abstract

Objective: The aim of this work is to present how the screening tool ‘The Community Assessment Risk Screen – CARS’ behaves in an implementation with patients within primary care system in Spain, and its use in case-management programmes of patients with chronic conditions.

Data and methods: The assessment of the CARS’ behaviour and its possible use within the Spanish Healthcare System was carried out through a retrospective cohort study in six primary care centres in Spain with a sample of 500 patients. The CARS tool includes 3 items: Diagnostics (heart diseases, diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, COPD, cancer), number of prescribed drugs and hospital admissions or emergency room visits in the previous 6 months. Data were collected from different health information systems – primary care data, pharmacy database, and hospital data (MDS) – with a reference date of December 2008. The end-point was hospital admission in 2009.

Results: Statistical analysis showed that CARS risk levels are related to future readmission

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