• Christopher S Parshuram, Karen Dryden-Palmer, Catherine Farrell, Ronald Gottesman, Martin Gray, James S Hutchison, Mark Helfaer, Elizabeth A Hunt, Ari R Joffe, Jacques Lacroix, Michael Alice Moga, Vinay Nadkarni, Nelly Ninis, Patricia C Parkin, David Wensley, Andrew R Willan, George A Tomlinson, and Canadian Critical Care Trials Group and the EPOCH Investigators.
• Critical Care Program, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• JAMA. 2018 Mar 13; 319 (10): 1002-1012.

ImportanceThere is limited evidence that the use of severity of illness scores in pediatric patients can facilitate timely admission to the intensive care unit or improve patient outcomes.ObjectiveTo determine the effect of the Bedside Paediatric Early Warning System (BedsidePEWS) on all-cause hospital mortality and late admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), cardiac arrest, and ICU resource use.Design, Setting, And ParticipantsA multicenter cluster randomized trial of 21 hospitals located in 7 countries (Belgium, Canada, England, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, and the Netherlands) that provided inpatient pediatric care for infants (gestational age ≥37 weeks) to teenagers (aged ≤18 years). Participating hospitals had continuous physician staffing and subspecialized pediatric services. Patient enrollment began on February 28, 2011, and ended on June 21, 2015. Follow-up ended on July 19, 2015.InterventionsThe BedsidePEWS intervention (10 hospitals) was compared with usual care (no severity of illness score; 11 hospitals).Main Outcomes And MeasuresThe primary outcome was all-cause hospital mortality. The secondary outcome was a significant clinical deterioration event, which was defined as a composite outcome reflecting late ICU admission. Regression analyses accounted for hospital-level clustering and baseline rates.ResultsAmong 144 539 patient discharges at 21 randomized hospitals, there were 559 443 patient-days and 144 539 patients (100%) completed the trial. All-cause hospital mortality was 1.93 per 1000 patient discharges at hospitals with BedsidePEWS and 1.56 per 1000 patient discharges at hospitals with usual care (adjusted between-group rate difference, 0.01 [95% CI, -0.80 to 0.81 per 1000 patient discharges]; adjusted odds ratio, 1.01 [95% CI, 0.61 to 1.69]; P = .96). Significant clinical deterioration events occurred during 0.50 per 1000 patient-days at hospitals with BedsidePEWS vs 0.84 per 1000 patient-days at hospitals with usual care (adjusted between-group rate difference, -0.34 [95% CI, -0.73 to 0.05 per 1000 patient-days]; adjusted rate ratio, 0.77 [95% CI, 0.61 to 0.97]; P = .03).Conclusions And RelevanceImplementation of the Bedside Paediatric Early Warning System compared with usual care did not significantly decrease all-cause mortality among hospitalized pediatric patients. These findings do not support the use of this system to reduce mortality.Trial Registrationclinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01260831.

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