EM Nerd - January 21, 2017 - By Rory Spiegel
...Published in JAMA, almost one year after Seymor et al unveiled this controversial tool, Freund et al reported the first prospective analysis of the qSOFA score. These authors examined patients presenting to 30 Emergency Departments across Europe with suspected infection. Patients were only included in the final analysis if two “experts” reviewing all the pertinent data from the patients’ hospital course concluded the hospitalization was due to an infectious cause. The 3 components of the qSOFA score were collected prospectively by the treating Emergency Physician during their ED course. These values were not collected exclusively upon initial presentation, but rather utilized the patient’s worst score during their stay in the Emergency Department. Unlike the previous retrospective evaluations, the presence of altered mental status was recorded separately from the patient’s GCS. The components of the SIRS criteria and SOFA score were also collected during their ED stay..."