Research Article
Emergency department Modified Early Warning Score association with admission, admission disposition, mortality, and length of stay
Juan J. Delgado-Hurtado, Andrea Berger, Amit B. Bansal
Published:
April 25, 2016
DOI:
10.3402/jchimp.v6.31456
License:
© 2016 Juan J. Delgado-Hurtado et al.2016This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
BackgroundGeisinger Health System implemented the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) in 2011 and is fully integrated to the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). Our objective was to assess whether the emergency department (ED) MEWS (auto-calculated by EMR) is associated with admission to the hospital, admission disposition, inpatient mortality, and length of stay (LOS) 4 years after its implementation.MethodsA random sample of 3,000 patients’ first encounter in the ED was extracted in the study period (between January 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015). Logistic regression was done to analyze whether mean, maximum, and median ED MEWS is associated with admission disposition, mortality, and LOS.ResultsMean, maximum, and median ED MEWS is associated with admission to the hospital, admission disposition, and mortality. It correlates weakly with LOS.ConclusionMEWS can be integrated to the EMR, and the score automatically generated still helps predict catastrophic events. MEWS can be used as a triage tool when deciding whether and where patients should be admitted.