The importance of a sepsis layered early warning system for critical patients

Critical illness, particularly sepsis, is associated with high mortality, so prevention is more important than effective therapy. Advances in medical science have provided more opportunities for early warning and early intervention to avoid the development of critical illness. Existing early warning systems (EWS) have the advantages of high efficiency and convenience. However, with the development of medical technology, they do not completely meet clinical needs. EWS should contain elements that meet many dimensions of clinical requirements, including risk warning, response warning, injury warning, critical warning, and death warning. By summarizing previous studies, we outlined a layered EWS that follows RISK bundles. RISK represents different warning sign categories: R: host response, I: organ injury, S: changes in vital signs, and K: gradual appearance of "killed" organs. We plan to construct a complete layered EWS to guide clinical activities and subsequent clinical studies in the near future.