While sitting in the waiting room at a hospital waiting for
the patient to come out of surgery, I heard over the loud speaker, “Rapid
Response Team to 2 west, Rapid Response Team to 2 west, Rapid Response Team to
2 west”. The words broke the otherwise silence
of family waiting patiently reading or texting.
They were unaware of the importance of the words they just
heard. The excitement ran through my
body because in the middle of a sunny afternoon, hospital staff were acting on
a fairly recent system to save patients who might otherwise die.
The Rapid Response Team, also known as the Medical Emergency
Team is in place at many hospitals to be called by patient, family or staff
when a patient is in need of fast intervention.
Unexpected cardiac arrests in hospitals are usually preceded by signs of
instability (1) and these patients are often cared for by junior staff. (2)
Following the Australian model the Rapid Response Team or
RRT brings ICU level care to the patient’s bedside using interdisciplinary
teams.(3)
Although there is still some controversy such as would this
method be abused or are highly trained physicians being taken away from one
patient to care for another(3), those of us know the importance of the RRT also
know 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 if
there is a RRT in place.
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