COVID-19: Association of risk classification with the Modified Early Warning Score and hospital outcomes

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the association of the risk classification categories with the Modified Early Warning Score and the outcomes of COVID-19 patients in the emergency service METHOD: a crosssectional study carried out with 372 patients hospitalized with a COVID-19 diagnosis and treated at the Risk Classification Welcoming area from the Emergency Room. In this study, the patients’ Modified Early Warning Score was categorized into without and with clinical deterioration, from 0 to 4 and from 5 to 9, respectively. Clinical deterioration was considered to be acute respiratory failure, shock and cardiopulmonary arrest RESULTS: the mean Modified Early Warning Score was 3.34. In relation to the patients’ clinical deterioration, it was observed that, in 43%, the time for deterioration was less than 24 hours and that 65.9% occurred in the Emergency Room. The most frequent deterioration was acute respiratory failure (69.9%) and the outcome was hospital discharge (70.3%). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 patients who had a Modified Early Warning Scores > 4 were associated with the urgent, very urgent and emergency risk classification categories, had more clinical deterioration, such as respiratory failure and shock, and evolved more to death, which shows that the Risk Classification Protocol correctly prioritized patients at risk of life.