Article Text
Abstract
Aims/Objectives/Background The NEWS2 (National Emergency Warning Score 2) is a widely used tool in Emergency Departments (ED) to identify patients who may be at increased risk of deterioration. NEWS2 is based on a simple aggregate scoring system in which a score is allocated to physiological measurements, already recorded in routine practice, when patients present to, or are being monitored in hospital. Currently there are no predictive scoring systems to evaluate ED re-attendances. The objective of this study was to investigate whether calculated NEWS2 had any influence on the ED re-attendances during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods/Design Data for the study was compiled from Symphony, the department’s electronic patient records. Data was retrospectively compiled for the month of April 2020 and was subsequently followed up to 28 days for re-attendances. Patients aged 18 years and older, presenting with COVID-19 symptoms who were discharged from ED were only included (n=310). Case definitions for COVID-19 symptomatology were in accordance to the Public Health England guidance. Correlation was made between NEWS2 and the total number of re-attendances within 28 days using regression analysis.
Results/Conclusions Simple linear regression analyses the influence of NEWS2 and the total number of re-attendances within 28 days and gives us the value of R2 as 0.007, which suggests that 0.7 percent of variation of NEWS2 is attributable to regression (figure 1).The regression line is almost flat which tells us that there is no relationship between the two variables. NEWS2 alone is not a useful tool to predict re-attendances to ED for patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms.