Early Warning Scores in Emergency Department Patients Aged 80 Years or Older - PubMed
5 hours ago
- #Risk Stratification
- #Emergency Medicine
- #Geriatrics
- Early warning scores (EWSs) are used for triage and risk stratification in emergency departments (EDs), but their effectiveness in patients aged 80 or older is understudied.
- The study evaluated five EWSs (NEWS, NEWS2, MEWS, REMS, IEWS) in ED patients aged 80+ to predict clinical deterioration (death or ICU admission within 24 hours).
- Among 50,645 patients (median age 85), 2.4% experienced clinical deterioration. All EWSs showed fair discrimination, with NEWS having the highest AUROC and REMS the best calibration.
- Predictive accuracy declined with age beyond 90, except for REMS, which improved in patients older than 94.
- Key predictors of deterioration in older patients included oxygen supplementation, systolic blood pressure, and Glasgow Coma Scale score.
- REMS demonstrated the most consistent performance in patients aged 94 or older, making it suitable for targeted risk stratification in this age group.