ABSTRACT
Background and Aims: Vital sign monitoring needs to be timely and correct to recognize deteriorating patients early and trigger the relevant clinical response. The aim of this study is to retrospectively evaluate compliance specifically toward the regional vital sign monitoring protocol the so called early warning score protocol (EWS-protocol) 72 h before a medical emergency team response (MET-response) and thereby illuminate whether poor compliance translates into a worse patient outcome. Methods: It was investigated all eligible patients that underwent MET responses during the calendar year 2019. The inclusion criteria encompassed somatic patients above 18 years of age admitted to the hospital and detailed evaluations of the medical records of the included patients were conducted. Results: Four hundred and twenty-nine MET-responses were included in the final analysis. EWS-protocol failure was observed for more than half the patients within all the time frames assessed. Thirty-day mortality was significantly higher for patients subject to EWS protocol failure in the timeframes 24-16, 16-8, 8-0 h before MET response. Adjusting for admission length, age, and gender, patients subject to EWS-protocol failure had an odds ratio (OR) of 1.9, 2.0, 2.1, 2.3 for mortality in the time frames 72-48, 24-16, 16-8, and 8-0 h before the MET-response, respectively. The adjusted OR for ICU-admission was 1.7, and 1.6 for patients subject to EWS-protocol failure in the time frames 16-8 and 8-0 h before MET-response, respectively. Conclusion: According to all the data analysis in this article, there is evidence that compliance toward the NEWS-protocol is poor. EWS-protocol failure is associated with a significant higher mortality and ICU-admission rate.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Many patients experiencing deterioration have documented deviation of vital signs prior to the deterioration event. Increasing focus on these patients led to the rapid response systems and their configuration with afferent and efferent limbs. The two most prevalent team constellations in the efferent limb are the medical emergency team (MET), usually led by a doctor, and the critical care outreach team (CCOT), usually led by a nurse. The two constellations have not previously been examined in a comparative clinical trial. METHODS: This is a single centre non-inferiority randomised controlled trial of MET vs CCOT. All patients will be randomised at the time of the call. The intervention group will be the critical care outreach team. The primary outcome is mortality at 30 days and the occurrence of serious adverse events. All patients will be followed for 90 days. We aim to detect or reject a change of 7% in mortality whilst accepting a type I error of 5 and type II error of 20, using a sample size of maximum of 2000 individual patients. DISCUSSION: There is evidence supporting a benefit for the patient when using rapid response systems; however, earlier randomised studies are marked by cross-contamination and selection bias. Previous studies have primarily examined the effect of RRS on hospital cardiac arrests (IHCA) and mortality. Our study will be examining the effect on intensive care unit admissions as well as the ICHA and mortality. CONCLUSION: This study may highlight potential benefits of specific configurations of rapid response systems and their impact on safety outcomes.
