Impact of a Local Low-Cost Ward-Based Response System in a Canadian Tertiary Care Hospital

Background. Medical emergency teams (METs) or rapid response teams (RRTs) facilitate early intervention for clinically deteriorating hospitalized patients. In healthcare systems where financial resources and intensivist availability are limited, the establishment of such teams can prove challenging. Objectives. A low-cost, ward-based response system was implemented on a medical clinical teaching unit in a Montreal tertiary care hospital. A prospective before/after study was undertaken to examine the system’s impact on time to intervention, code blue rates, and ICU transfer rates. Results. Ninety-five calls were placed for 82 patients. Median time from patient decompensation to intervention was 5 min (IQR 1–10), compared to 3.4 hours (IQR 0.6–12.4) before system implementation (p