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Outreach and early warning systems for the prevention of intensive care admission and death of critically ill adult patients on general hospital wards
Author(s) -
Kovacs Caroline
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of nursing practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1440-172X
pISSN - 1322-7114
DOI - 10.1111/ijn.12481
Subject(s) - health care , port (circuit theory) , outreach , medicine , health informatics , intensive care , nursing , general hospital , library science , family medicine , computer science , political science , engineering , public health , electrical engineering , intensive care medicine , law
This is a commentary on a Cochrane review1 concerning Outreach and Early Warning Systems for the prevention of Intensive Care admission and death of critically ill adult patients on general hospital wards. Many in-hospital deaths or other adverse events might be predicted and hence avoided because abnormal vital signs observations can be detected some six to 24 hours prior to an adverse event. However the clinical importance of these is often missed. This might be because staff do not recognise the clinical urgency, fail to seek advice, or lack knowledge or skills in resuscitation. Failure to recognise the severity of the patient’s situation may result in unanticipated admission to Intensive Care, longer length of stay, cardiac arrest or death.