A prospective study of consecutive emergency medical admissions to compare a novel automated computer-aided mortality risk score and clinical judgement of patient mortality risk.

OBJECTIVES: To compare the performance of a validated automatic computer-aided risk of mortality (CARM) score versus medical judgement in predicting the risk of in-hospital mortality for patients following emergency medical admission. DESIGN: A prospective study. SETTING: Consecutive emergency medical admissions in York hospital. PARTICIPANTS: Elderly medical admissions in one ward were assigned a risk of death at the first post-take ward round by consultant staff over a 2-week period. The consultant medical staff used the same variables to assign a risk of death to the patient as the CARM (age, sex, National Early Warning Score and blood test results) but also had access to the clinical history, examination findings and any immediately available investigations such as ECGs. The performance of the CARM versus consultant medical judgement was compared using the c-statistic and the positive predictive value (PPV). RESULTS: The in-hospital mortality was 31.8% (130/409). For patients with complete blood test results, the c-statistic for CARM was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.69 to 0.81) versus 0.72 (95% CI: 0.66 to 0.78) for medical judgements (p=0.28). For patients with at least one missing blood test result, the c-statistics were similar (medical judgements 0.70 (95% CI: 0.60 to 0.81) vs CARM 0.70 (95% CI: 0.59 to 0.80)). At a 10% mortality risk, the PPV for CARM was higher than medical judgements in patients with complete blood test results, 62.0% (95% CI: 51.2 to 71.9) versus 49.2% (95% CI: 39.8 to 58.5) but not when blood test results were missing, 50.0% (95% CI: 24.7 to 75.3) versus 53.3% (95% CI: 34.3 to 71.7). CONCLUSIONS: CARM is comparable with medical judgements in discriminating in-hospital mortality following emergency admission to an elderly care ward. CARM may have a promising role in supporting medical judgements in determining the patient's risk of death in hospital. Further evaluation of CARM in routine practice is required.

Carotid endarterectomy: a Southern North Island regional consensus statement.

AIMS: The aim of this project was to employ interdepartmental and cross district health board collaboration to reach a regional consensus on the management of patients who may benefit from carotid endarterectomy. METHODS: All regional stroke physicians, neurologists, and vascular surgeons met to review relevant literature and local audits and to discuss best management strategies suited to the region. RESULTS: A consensus statement was agreed upon and is presented here along with a summary of the supporting scientific evidence. DISCUSSION: Regional interdisciplinary collaboration proved an effective way to reach a carotid endarterectomy management consensus across a wider geographical area that is served by a single vascular surgery department. This approach could serve as a model for other regional initiatives.