Background: The decision to admit patients to hospital in low-resource settings have been poorly investigated.

Aim: We aimed to determine the association of a disposition score determined on arrival with the decision subsequently made to admit or discharge the patient. The score awarded one point for altered mental status, one point for impaired mobility and one point for low oxygen saturation.

Methods: The mental status, mobility and oxygen saturation on arrival of 5,334 consecutive patients attending a combined emergency and outpatient department in a low-resource Ugandan hospital were recorded. Admission decisions were subsequently made independently by clinicians unaware to the score.

Results: Most patients (n=3,876; 73%) had a disposition score of zero and only 25 of these patients (0.6%) were subsequently admitted. A total of 646 (12.1%) patients were admitted. Only 301 (5.6%) patients had a score of 3 points and 263 (87.4%) of these were admitted. The C statistic for the discrimination of the score for admission was 0.953 (95% confidence interval 0.941-0.964).

Conclusion: In a low-resource setting, a simple score based on mental status, mobility and oxygen saturation identified outpatient and emergency department patients most and least likely to be subsequently admitted to hospital with a high degree of discrimination.

Keywords: admission decisions; admission prediction; admission process; emergency admissions; triage scores.