Could Utilising a Paediatric Early Warning Score Better Indicate Adverse Patient Outcomes in the Pre-hospital setting?

Could Utilising a Paediatric Early Warning Score Better Indicate Adverse Patient Outcomes in the Pre-hospital setting?
Results
The core objective of this research was to determine whether using PEWS could be used better to show adverse patient prognosis in the pre-hospital setting. Therefore, the findings will answer the following study questions. The first question was if utilizing PEWS could show adverse results for patients in pre-hospital settings. Also, the findings will help answer whether the use of standard PEWS could better identify the children susceptible to rapid deterioration. The study by Broughton and Maconochie aimed to understand the potential effectiveness of paediatric early warning score (PEWS) in an ambulance service setting (Broughton and Maconochie 2019, p.8). The study includes a random sample of 300 patient records in its analysis (Broughton and Maconochie 2019, p.8). As per the inclusion criteria used in the study, 169 records were deemed suitable to be included in the study (Broughton and Maconochie 2019, p.8). However, 131 records were excluded from the study following exclusion criteria. Of the 169 patients used in the study, 17.8% were discharged as per the patient own GP for follow-up, while 10.7% of the patients were admitted (Broughton and Maconochie 2019, p.8). Also, the majority of the patients representing 59.2 %, were discharged, while the remaining 21 patients had 11 different emergency department outcomes (Broughton and Maconochie 2019, p.8). Specificity decreases with an increase in PEWS, consequently raising the sensitivity. Also, the PEWS demonstrated low sensitivity for patients who were referred to GP from the emergency department.