• Gary B Smith, David R Prytherch, Stuart Jarvis, Caroline Kovacs, Paul Meredith, Paul E Schmidt, and Jim Briggs.
• 1Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, University of Bournemouth, Bournemouth, UK.2Department of Research & Development, Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Portsmouth, UK.3Centre for Healthcare Modelling & Informatics, School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.4Department of Health Sciences, University of York, York, United Kingdom.
• Crit. Care Med. 2016 Dec 1; 44 (12): 2171-2181.

ObjectiveTo compare the ability of medical emergency team criteria and the National Early Warning Score to discriminate cardiac arrest, unanticipated ICU admission and death within 24 hours of a vital signs measurement, and to quantify the associated workload.DesignRetrospective cohort study.SettingA large U.K. National Health Service District General Hospital.PatientsAdults hospitalized from May 25, 2011, to December 31, 2013.InterventionsNone.Measurements And Main ResultsWe applied the National Early Warning Score and 44 sets of medical emergency team criteria to a database of 2,245,778 vital signs sets (103,998 admissions). The National Early Warning Score's performance was assessed using the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve and compared with sensitivity/specificity for different medical emergency team criteria. Area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (95% CI) for the National Early Warning Score for the combined outcome (i.e., death, cardiac arrest, or unanticipated ICU admission) was 0.88 (0.88-0.88). A National Early Warning Score value of 7 had sensitivity/specificity values of 44.5% and 97.4%, respectively. For the 44 sets of medical emergency team criteria studied, sensitivity ranged from 19.6% to 71.2% and specificity from 71.5% to 98.5%. For all outcomes, the position of the National Early Warning Score receiver-operating characteristic curve was above and to the left of all medical emergency team criteria points, indicating better discrimination. Similarly, the positions of all medical emergency team criteria points were above and to the left of the National Early Warning Score efficiency curve, indicating higher workloads (trigger rates).ConclusionsWhen medical emergency team systems are compared to a National Early Warning Score value of greater than or equal to 7, some medical emergency team systems have a higher sensitivity than National Early Warning Score values of greater than or equal to 7. However, all of these medical emergency team systems have a lower specificity and would generate greater workloads.

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