MultiCare Health System: Using a Modified Early Warning System ...

Literature Search of Effectiveness
» McGaughey J et al, Outreach and Early Warning Systems (EWS)
for the prevention of Intensive Care admission and death of
critically ill adult patients on general hospital wards, Cochrane
Collaboration, Issue 1, June, 2009.
» Author’s Conclusions: “The evidence from this review highlights
the diversity and poor methodological quality of most studies
investigating outreach. The results of the two included studies
showed either no evidence of the effectiveness of outreach or
a reduction in overall mortality in patient receiving outreach.
The lack of evidence on outreach requires further multi-site RCT’s
to determine potential effectiveness.”
» The larger part of the available research evidence on outreach is
based on before and after designs which either lack randomization
or use historical controls.