Rapid Response Teams Have Dramatic Impact

The introduction of rapid response teams (RRTs) at a children?s hospital significantly reduced hospital-wide death and code rates, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The 260-bed Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., added RRTs for patients outside the intensive care unit and saw an 18% decrease in deaths and a 70% decline in cardiac and respiratory arrest rates, according to study author Paul Sharek, a physician at Stanford University School of Medicine. The study compared more than 22,000 patient admissions before RRTs were used to more than 7,000 admissions after they were introduced.