Internal and emergency medicine
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The In-hospital Mortality for PulmonAry embolism using Claims daTa (IMPACT) rule can accurately identify pulmonary embolism (PE) patients at low risk of early complications using claims data. We sought to externally validate the IMPACT and simplified Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (sPESI) tools for predicting all-cause mortality and readmission. We used Veteran Health Administration data (10/1/2010-9/30/2015) to identify adults with ≥1 inpatient diagnosis code for acute PE, ≥12 months continuous medical and pharmacy benefits prior to the index PE, ≥90 days of post-event follow-up (unless death occurred) and ≥1 claim for an anticoagulant during the index PE stay. ⋯ Similar trends were observed for VTE or major bleeding readmissions. IMPACT classified patients for post-PE outcomes with similar accuracy as sPESI. IMPACT appears useful for identifying PE patients at low risk for early mortality or readmission in claims-based studies.