• Pulmonary disease
• chronic obstructive
• hospitalisation
• patient readmission
• home care services
• hospital-based
• exacerbation
• COPD exacerbations

There is increasing interest in managing patients with non-severe acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) in the community. Hospital at Home and COPD Outreach programmes facilitate discharge of patients that would otherwise require hospital admission and have been shown to reduce hospital stay,1 readmission2 and healthcare costs without compromising patient care and satisfaction.3 Despite the human and health-related benefits associated with home services, ∼30% of patients relapse within 8 weeks, requiring hospital readmission.2

In an effort to better understand the factors that predict relapse in these patients, we prospectively studied consecutive admissions with AECOPD discharged to a COPD Outreach programme. Patients with an AECOPD who met specific criteria4 were enrolled within 24 h …