Prospective Observational Study on the National Early Warning Score (NEWS): Standardizing Acute-Illness Severity and Care Effectiveness.

The national early warning score (NEWS) is an appropriate tool for assessing patients experiencing catastrophic deterioration and enabling prompt intervention. The present study was carried out to assess the applicability of the NEWS in emergency departments and follow-up patients in the ICU in an Indian scenario. Methods: The study was conducted involving 270 patients of either sex and age greater than 16 years selected by simple random sampling. The data, which includes respiration rate, pulse rate, temperature, oxygen saturations, systolic blood pressure, and degree of consciousness, was gathered using the National Early Warning Score. Results: The mean age was 56.4 ± 16.9 years. The gender distribution was almost equal, with 53.7% male and 46.3% female. NEWS was 1-4 in 25.9% of subjects. 5-6 in 28.1% subjects and >/=7 in 45.9% subjects. The mean NEWS was 6.5 ± 2.9. Mortality was 22.6%, 75.9% of subjects were discharged, and 1.5% were referred. Apart from blood pressure and urine output, none of the parameters were found to be significantly different, including NEWS, between subjects with outcomes of death and discharge. The NEWS cut-off of 7.5 was found to predict mortality with 63.4% sensitivity and 49.2% specificity. Conclusion: NEWS effectively identifies subjects in need of immediate medical attention and paves the way for the development of a nationally validated scoring system to assess and convey the condition of subjects at intra- and inter-hospital facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]