Timely identification, referral and treatment of children who are clinically deteriorating while admitted to hospital wards is a fundamental element of inpatient care. In community hospitals, advantages including greater continuity of inpatient-outpatient care, improved geographic access for families, and lower healthcare system costs, may be undermined if children with evolving critical illness are not recognized and transferred in a timely manner. The Bedside Paediatric Early Warning System (Bedside PEWS) is a system of care designed to augment existing expertise and to provide a safety net for children who are clinically deteriorating while admitted to hospital wards. The Bedside PEWS is comprised of 4 components; [1] an expert derived, multi-centre validated severity of illness score, [2] an inter-professionally developed documentation record into which the severity of illness score is embedded, [3] a series of score-matched care recommendations based on the opinions of over 280 paediatric health care professionals, and [4] an educator-developed education-implementation program.

We will be performing a prospective observational study of care outcomes, physician workload and frontline staff perceptions before and after the implementation of Bedside PEWS in a community paediatric hospital. We plan to evaluate the outcomes of patients who were admitted to the 22-bed paediatric inpatient unit and were less than 18 years of age at hospital admission, and the healthcare professionals caring for them during their inpatient stay.

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients admitted to the paediatric inpatient unit at Credit Valley Hospital from June 2008-December 2008

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients over 18 years of age

Patients admitted to the 22-bed paediatric inpatient unit and were less than 18 years of age at hospital admission