Triage tool for suspected COVID-19 patients in the emergency room: AIFELL score.
Braz J Infect Dis
; 24(5): 458-461, 2020.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32828735
ABSTRACT
Clinical prediction scores support the assessment of patients in the emergency setting to determine the need for further diagnostic and therapeutic steps. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, physicians in emergency rooms (ER) of many hospitals have a considerably higher patient load and need to decide within a short time frame whom to hospitalize. Based on our clinical experiences in dealing with COVID-19 patients at the University Hospital in Zurich, we created a triage score with the acronym "AIFELL" consisting of clinical, radiological and laboratory findings. The score was then evaluated in a retrospective analysis of 122 consecutive patients with suspected COVID-19 from March until mid-April 2020. Descriptive statistics, Student's t-test, ANOVA and Scheffe's post-hoc analysis confirmed the diagnostic power of the score. The results suggest that the AIFELL score has potential as a triage tool in the ER setting intended to select probable COVID-19 cases for hospitalization in spontaneously presenting or referred patients with acute respiratory symptoms.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Pandemics
Type of study:
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Braz J Infect Dis
Journal subject:
DOENCAS TRANSMISSIVEIS
Year:
2020
Document type:
Article