Evaluation of Early Warning Systems on a Medical Admissions Unit

Validation of a modified Early Warning Score in medical admissions.

The Early Warning Score (EWS) is a simple physiological scoring system suitable for bedside application. The ability of a modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) to identify medical patients at risk of catastrophic deterioration in a busy clinical area was investigated. In a prospective cohort study, we applied MEWS to patients admitted to the 56-bed acute Medical Admissions Unit (MAU) of a Distric...

An early warning on early warning systems!

Acute poisoning on the medical admissions unit.

Consensus statement on diagnosis, investigation, treatment and prevention of acute bacterial meningitis in immunocompetent adults. British Infection Working Party. Review. J Infect 1999;39:1–15. 6 Whitley RJ, Gnann JW. Viral encephalitis: familiar infections and emerging pathogens. Review. Lancet 2002;359:507–13. 7 Friedman DI, Jacobson DM. Diagnostic criteria for idiopathic intracranial hypert...

Early warning scores for emergency admissions

A busy hospital is a dangerous place. Patients who apparently look well may be harbouring deteriorating vital signs. They may be in the wrong department for their condition, or waiting at home, due to lack of beds. They are probably being observed by amember of staff who has not been trained to recognise critical illness. In April 1999, theDepartment ofHealth established a review of adult criti...

Emergency admissions to a geriatric medical unit.

DIRECT admission of patients from home is the predominant method of admission to geriatric medical units. Admission may take place as the result of a telephone consultation with the general practitioner or, in less urgent cases, following a domiciliary assessment visit by a member of the medical staff of the unit. However, in recent years the pattern of referral to hospitals in Belfast has chan...