Abstract
Objectives: To determine the effect of the implementation of a medical emergency team on the incidence of unexpected cardiorespiratory arrest, unexpected death, unplanned ICU admissions, and advance directive status.
Design, setting, and patients: This is a single center, retrospective, electronic medical record review. Adult patients admitted to regular ward between November 2007 to February 2008 and November 2008 to February 2009 at the VA Caribbean Healthcare System were evaluated. Medical emergency team education and program rollout occurred from February through June 2008.
Main outcome measures: Unexpected inhospital cardiorespiratory arrest, death, and unplanned ICU admission rates.
Results: There was no effect on unexpected death (p=0.23) nor 48 hour survival after the intervention (p=0.37). There was no change in DNR status previous to MET (p=0.18) and after MET implementation (p=0.32). There was no change of unexpected cardiorespiratory arrest (p=0.16), although lower rates of non-ICU codes were observed (31 versus 25) during the study time period.
Conclusion: The implementation of the MET in our institution was not associated with a decrease on rate of unexpected cardiorespiratory arrest, unexpected death, 48 hour survival after the intervention or change of DNR status.
Biomaris Medina-Rivera, Zulmari Campos-Santiago, Alfonso Torres Palacios, William Rodríguez-Cintrón
