Development and Validation of Early Warning Criteria to Identify Escalated Care Events in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Patients.

Objective: This study aimed to identify and validate the diagnostic utility of a set of clinical and laboratory criteria (early warning criteria [EWC]) that portend a clinical deterioration event (escalated care event [ECE]) in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients.

Study Design: Using the RAND appropriateness method, we first established a consensus on seven ECE, that is, events that require additional monitoring, treatment, or stay in the NICU or that were associated with morbidity. We then established consensus on EWC that could portend an ECE from an initial set of 32 potential EWC items to a final set of 10 items.