PLoS ONE (Jan 2020)

Electronic health record analysis identifies kidney disease as the leading risk factor for hospitalization in confirmed COVID-19 patients.

  • Matthew T Oetjens,
  • Jonathan Z Luo,
  • Alexander Chang,
  • Joseph B Leader,
  • Dustin N Hartzel,
  • Bryn S Moore,
  • Natasha T Strande,
  • H Lester Kirchner,
  • David H Ledbetter,
  • Anne E Justice,
  • David J Carey,
  • Tooraj Mirshahi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242182
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 11
p. e0242182

Abstract

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BackgroundEmpirical data on conditions that increase risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) progression are needed to identify high risk individuals. We performed a comprehensive quantitative assessment of pre-existing clinical phenotypes associated with COVID-19-related hospitalization.MethodsPhenome-wide association study (PheWAS) of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients from an integrated health system (Geisinger) with system-level outpatient/inpatient COVID-19 testing capacity and retrospective electronic health record (EHR) data to assess pre-COVID-19 pandemic clinical phenotypes associated with hospital admission (hospitalization).ResultsOf 12,971 individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 with sufficient pre-COVID-19 pandemic EHR data at Geisinger, 1604 were SARS-CoV-2 positive and 354 required hospitalization. We identified 21 clinical phenotypes in 5 disease categories meeting phenome-wide significance (PConclusionsThis study provides quantitative estimates of the contribution of pre-existing clinical phenotypes to COVID-19 hospitalization and highlights kidney disorders as the strongest factors associated with hospitalization in an integrated US healthcare system.