NEWS2 Scores Can ID Patients With Suspected Sepsis Needing Timely Treatment

MONDAY, Aug. 17, 2026 (HealthDay News) — National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) values calculated by U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines can identify patients with suspected sepsis in whom delayed antibiotic administration is associated with increased mortality, according to a study published online Aug. 5 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Chanu Rhee, M.D., from the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute in Boston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults admitted via the emergency department of nine hospitals and treated for suspected infection. Hourly associations between time to antibiotic administration and hospital mortality were estimated, stratified by shock and by laboratory-upgraded NICE-NEWS2 scores (NEWS2+).

The final cohort included 71,593 patients who contributed 99,667 encounters; 4,867 (4.9 percent) of the encounters had shock. The researchers found that in encounters with shock, but not in those without shock, each additional hour to antibiotic administration was associated with higher mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 1.15; 1.5 percent absolute increase per hour). In encounters with NEWS2+ scores ≥7, delays were also associated with higher mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 1.07; 0.5 percent absolute increase per hour), including 86.3 percent of 26,551 encounters without shock (adjusted odds ratio, 1.05; 0.4 percent absolute increase per hour). In encounters with NEWS2+ scores <7, no association was observed.

“Our study suggests that NEWS2, a simple early warning score based on routinely measured bedside parameters, can help identify the patients most likely to benefit from immediate treatment — including many beyond those with septic shock — while allowing clinicians greater confidence to take additional time evaluating lower-risk patients,” Rhee said in a statement.

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

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