Page 36 - The-5th-MCAIT2021-eProceeding

A Web Based Early Warning Score Calculator and Data Logger

for Patients Vital Signs Monitoring

a*
b
Rosmina Jaafar and Nurul Izzati Kamdani
a Dept. Electrical, Electronic & Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,
Bangi 43600, Malaysia
b Information Technology, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Malaysia
*Email: rosmina@ukm.edu.my

Abstract

An early warning score (EWS) of a person’s vital signs is a guide often used by medical services to quickly determine the
degree of health status of a patient. In a traditional EWS, vital signs are recorded manually on paper charts, making it cumber
some to implement data retrievals. The advancement of computer technology offers fast computation, automation, and ease
of data manipulation. It provides opportunity for ease of data retrieval. As such, we describe the development of a digital
EWS calculator based on web applications. The system development utilized Laravel as a code editor, while phpMyAdmin
was used for database management. Besides being a EWS calculator, the system also serves as a data logger for patient’s
vital signs monitoring. It requires a user to key in patients’ vital signs into the system where all data are saved in a cloud
data storage. The EWS system main functions are key-in data for vital signs (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart
rate, body temperature, breathing rate and level of patient’s conscious level referred as AVPU scale), display of data trend
or history of vital signs, doctor’s appointment, and surgery schedule for the patient that is registered into the system. The
EWS system allows two types of users which are patient caretaker and super admin. All data and personal information are
secured in the database. The EWS is important for patient health monitoring and future data retrieval will allow possible
further analysis by the medical doctors when required.

Keywords: Early warning scores; vital signs; patients monitoring; data logger

1. Introduction

A systematic monitoring of the early warning score (EWS) from patients’ vital signs has attracted the interest
of many medical service providers worldwide beginning from the late 1990’s after studies showed that in-
hospital deterioration and cardiac arrest were often preceded by a period of increasing abnormalities in the vital
signs (Morgan et. al, 1997). The standard vital signs from a human subject are systolic and diastolic blood
pressure, heart rate, body temperature, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, and the level of patient’ s
consciousness commonly referred as AVPU scale (“alert, voice, pain, unresponsive”). A total score of five or
more is statistically linked to increased likelihood of death or admission to an intensive care unit (Subbe et al,
2001). Since the awareness of the importance of tracking the EWS of a patient, few different EWS have been
made available for special different situations. The common EWS are briefly described as follows (Doyle,
2018):
 National Early Warning Score (NEWS) for general patient monitoring based on the Royal College of
Physicians set point
 Modified Early Warning System (MEWS) for general patient monitoring without the need to input
oxygenation information
 Pediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS) for pediatric population that also focuses on child behaviors

E- Proceedings of The 5th International Multi-Conference on Artificial Intelligence Technology (MCAIT 2021) [24]
Artificial Intelligence in the 4th Industrial Revolution