NICU patient acuity scores have had increased utility as tools to normalize patient populations due to acuity, for comparison of different NICUs. One score, CRIB (Clinical Risk Index for Babies) includes only 6 data elements collected in the first 12 hours of life and is an effective acuity score predictive of NICU deaths. The tool's usefulness is limited in neonatal transports, where the CRIB score data is frequently missing and may represent variations of care in the referral hospital, and confuse analysis of the NICU's performance. In addition, CRIB has only been studied in the less mature babies (<1500 gms), which compromise only a fraction of NICUs admissions. HYPOTHESIS: The CRIB score as published (Lancet 1993; 342:193-98) would be a good predictor of death when the data was collected within the first 12 hours of ADMISSION. METHODS: CRIB score was collected on all babies admitted to 2 NICUs (inborn and outborn including Maternal referrals, Neonatal surgery and ECMO) from 1/1/94-12/31/95. The data were analyzed using the area under the receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve for CRIB score and death, both overall and early (0-7 days). RESULTS: 1669 patients were admitted of which 1649 had CRIB scores available for analysis. The results of the analysis of the area under the ROC curves are shown below: Table

Table 1
Full size table

Conclusion: CRIB score using data from the first 12 hours of admission in all gestations is an effective predictor of death (early and total). SPECULATION: The CRIB score may be more a effective tool for prediction of early death, than late deaths.

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