Effect of the national early warning score on monitoring the vital signs of patients in the emergency room

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To verify the effect of using the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) system on the compliance of the vital signs monitoring interval with those recommended for patients in the emergency room. METHODS: This is a quasi-experimental, before-and-after study, performed in an emergency room with 280 adult patients selected by convenience. The effect of NEWS on the compliance of the vital signs monitoring interval with those recommended by the system was analyzed by linear regression. RESULTS: In the Pre-NEWS phase, 143 patients were analyzed (mean age ± standard deviation: 54.4 ± 20.5; male: 56.6%) and, in the Post-NEWS phase, 137 patients (mean age ± standard deviation: 55.5 ± 20.8; male: 50.4%). There was compliance of the vital signs monitoring interval with what is recommended by NEWS in 92.6% of vital signs records after adopting this instrument. This compliance was 9% (p < 0.001) higher in the Post-NEWS phase. CONCLUSION: The use of the NEWS system increased the compliance of the vital signs monitoring intervals with the ones recommended, but this compliance decreased when the NEWS score pointed to a shorter interval in the monitoring of vital signs.