• Arthas Flabouris, Jack Chen, Ken Hillman, Rinaldo Bellomo, Simon Finfer, and MERIT Study Investigators from the Simpson Centre and the ANZICs Clinical Trials Group.
• Intensive Care Unit, Royal Adelaide Hospital, University of Adelaide, Australia.
• Resuscitation. 2010 Jan 1;81(1):25-30.

AimsTo examine interventions and timing of emergency team calls in hospitals with or without a medical emergency team (MET).MethodsInterventions were recorded, categorized and classified as critical care interventions (e.g. airway intervention, ventilation and use of inotropic drugs); ward level interventions (e.g. fluids, oxygen by mask); assessment, physical examination and investigations.ResultsOnly 5 of the 2376 calls were free of critical care interventions. For non-cardiac arrest-related calls, MET hospitals had a lower proportion of airway, circulation and drug-related interventions and a higher proportion of ward level interventions. The majority of calls were between 0601 and 1200 h and cardiac arrest survival was greatest in the 1200-2400 h period. Overall median time at the scene was 25 min.ConclusionsNearly all emergency team calls required critical care type interventions. Emergency team calls show a unique temporal pattern for both MET and control hospitals. These findings have important organizational and resource-related implications for hospitals evaluating and establishing rapid response systems.Crown Copyright 2009. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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