The modified early warning score (MEWS), as a rapid assessment and early warning scoring tool, has been widely used in patients in China, which can help nurses to identify potentially critical patients early, but not in all clinical fields. Through the retrieval of the relevant literature of the clinical application of the MEWS in Wanfang Medical Database from 2011 to 2018, the SWOT analysis was used in this paper [strength (S), weakness (W), opportunities (O) and threats (T)] methods, to systematically analyze the advantages, problems existence, implementation opportunities and challenges in the clinical application of the MEWS in our country. The purpose of this study was to obtain the best cut-off value of MEWS in different diseases and to formulate standard early-warning intervention measures for MEWS, which may provide reference for clinical workers to carry out relevant research.