Medicina de Emergência: Acesso Aberto
Acesso livre

Abstrato

The Rapid Response Team Reduces the Number of Cardiopulmonary Arrests and Hospital Mortality

Mohammed Hijazi, Maya Sinno and Mariam Alansar

Background: Cardiopulmonary arrest continues to affect inpatients resulting in high mortality. It is frequently preceded by warning signs that if recognized and addressed might prevent arrest. The aim of the rapid response team is early recognition and management of such warning signs to prevent arrest.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of the rapid response team intervention in reducing the number of cardiopulmonary arrest in adult and pediatric inpatient regular floor patients as part of the performance improvement program.

Setting: An 800-bed tertiary care medical centre.

Design: Prospective observational before-and-after study.

Intervention: Introduction of the rapid response team as a performance improvement project to reduce the number of inpatient cardiopulmonary arrests.

Outcome: Rate of cardiopulmonary arrest per 1000 admissions in adult and pediatric patient outside intensive care units.

Results: The number of cardiopulmonary arrest outside the intensive care units before implementing the RRT was 75 during 2006 (rate of 3.53 per 1000 admissions) and decreased to 59 and 37 cardiopulmonary arrests during 2007 and 2008, respectively (rate of 2.72 for 2007 and 1.68 for 2008 per 1000 admission) after implementing the RRT (p-value = 0.0068). The number of calls to the RRT correlated inversely with the number of arrests.

Conclusion: The rapid response team is effective in reducing the number of cardiopulmonary arrest in adult and pediatric patient in a tertiary care setting.