Rapid Response Teams

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The Rapid Response Team

While sitting in the waiting room at a hospital waiting forthe patient to come out of surgery, I heard over the loud speaker, “RapidResponse Team to 2 west, Rapid Response Team to 2 west, Rapid Response Team to2 west”.  The words broke the otherwise silenceof family waiting patiently reading or texting.They were unaware of the importance of the words they justheard.  The excitement ran through mybody because in the middle of a sunny afternoon, hospital staff were acting ona fairly recent system to save patients who might otherwise die.The Rapid Response Team, also known as the Medical EmergencyTeam is in place at many hospitals to be called by patient, family or staffwhen a patient is in need of fast intervention. Unexpected cardiac arrests in hospitals are usually preceded by signs ofinstability (1) and these patients are often cared for by junior staff. (2) Following the Australian model the Rapid Response Team orRRT brings ICU level care to the patient’s bedside using interdisciplinaryteams.(3)Although there is still some controversy such as would thismethod be abused or are highly trained physicians being taken away from onepatient to care for another(3), those of us know the importance of the RRT alsoknow that we would rather be in a hospital that uses them, than not.Look for the signs on the wall of your hospital and see ifthere is a RRT in place.


1.      http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/98/6/1388?ijkey=7401141a409d505da84eaca67df498c09826d1c8&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha&linkType=ABST&journalCode=chest&resid=98/6/1388
2.      http://www.bmj.com/content/324/7334/387.abstract?ijkey=627eb37a84ed65585ace104c27ed907ef3177b72&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
3.      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2687898/