An indirect measure of the impact of a left ventricular assist device (VAD) on a patient's quality of life is the amount of time that a person is in the hospital with the device.
Patient selection: left ventricular assist device (or other implanted device)
Assumption: days in and out of hospital with device correlate with the patient's quality of life. It may be better correlated with cost of care.
Parameters:
(1) number of days alive with implanted device
(2) number of days out of hospital (OOH) with device
ratio of days out of hospital to days alive with device =
= (days out of hospital) / (number of days alive)
Interpretation:
ª The ratio varies between 0 and 1.
• The greater the decimal fraction the "better" the quality of life.
• A patient with hospital readmissions tends to have a lower decimal fraction.
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