Acute medicine
-
Following an emergency medical admission, patients may be admitted an acute medical assessment unit (AMAU) or directly into a ward. An AMAU provides a structured environment for their initial assessment and treatment. ⋯ Patients, with equivalent mortality risk, allocated initially to AMAU or a more traditional ward, appeared to have substantially different outcomes.
-
it is not known how best to respond to changes in the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) after hospital admission. This report manipulates and extrapolates previously published data on the trajectories of the abbreviated early warning score (AbEWS i.e. NEWS that does not include mental status). ⋯ the trajectories of early warning scores after admission are of prognostic importance, and escalation protocols should relate changes in the score to its initial value on admission.