1. An Evaluation of Community Assessment Tools (CATs) in Predicting Use of Clinical Interventions and Severe Outcomes during the A(H1N1)pdm09 Pandemic
- Author
-
Cowling, Benjamin J., Semple, Malcolm G., Myles, Puja R., Nicholson, Karl G., Lim, Wei Shen, Read, Robert C., Taylor, Bruce L., Brett, Stephen J., Openshaw, Peter J.M., Enstone, Joanne E., McMenamin, James, Bannister, Barbara, and Nguyen-Van-Tam, Jonathan S.
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Referral ,Adolescent ,Science ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Psychological intervention ,Severity of Illness Index ,Young Adult ,Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype ,Severity of illness ,Health care ,Influenza, Human ,Outcome Assessment, Health Care ,medicine ,Humans ,Public Health Surveillance ,Intensive care medicine ,Child ,Aged ,Mechanical ventilation ,Aged, 80 and over ,Multidisciplinary ,business.industry ,Mortality rate ,Age Factors ,Infant, Newborn ,Oxygen Inhalation Therapy ,Infant ,Middle Aged ,Triage ,Respiration, Artificial ,Patient Care Management ,Child, Preschool ,Cohort ,Medicine ,Female ,business ,Research Article - Abstract
During severe influenza pandemics healthcare demand can exceed clinical capacity to provide normal standards of care. Community Assessment Tools (CATs) could provide a framework for triage decisions for hospital referral and admission. CATs have been developed based on evidence that supports the recognition of severe influenza and pneumonia in the community (including resource limited settings) for adults, children and infants, and serious feverish illness in children. CATs use six objective criteria and one subjective criterion, any one or more of which should prompt urgent referral and admission to hospital. A retrospective evaluation of the ability of CATs to predict use of hospital-based interventions and patient outcomes in a pandemic was made using the first recorded routine clinical assessment on or shortly after admission from 1520 unselected patients (800 female, 480 children
- Published
- 2013