risk infant intervention system

It is generally accepted in adult and paediatric practice, that prior to acute deterioration and subsequent transfer to intensive care, patients often show signs of deterioration which are either unrecognised or not acted upon by nursing and medical staff. Early warning scores based on physiological observations (heart and respiratory rate etc) which automatically trigger medical review have been validated as useful ways of detecting deterioration and prompting intervention to reduce morbidity in both adult and paediatric populations. To our knowledge, no such tools have been developed or fully evaluated in the newborn population. A Medline and Embase search found no studies directly related to newborn infants. One reason for this may be the lack of well established normal ranges for biophysical variables. Published studies are sparse and not solely confined to the perinatal period. Even the standard textbooks have differences The Newborn Early Warning (NEW) system: development of an at-risk infant intervention system