title: Frequency and pattern of medical emergency team activation among medical cardiology patient care units.
abstract: Medical emergency teams are developing across the United States. The organization and implementation for a rapid response team to failing medical-surgical patients has been shown to reduce in-house cardiac arrest rates. Further investigation into the frequency and pattern for rapid response team calls has been shown to have a diurnal pattern and clustered around times associated with routine care activities. The medical emergency calls in the descriptive analysis reveal that calls to the medical cardiology units constitute--% of the total calls. The calls are found to be called with--frequency during the hours of 7 AM and 7 PM. The frequency of calls is shown to be clustered around the times of. The small descriptive analysis here suggests that further investigation in the patterns and monitoring of patient for early recognition to call for help is still needed.
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Presbyterian-Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. schmida@upmc.edu
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schmid
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers; D002309:Cardiology / Q000458:organization & administration*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D004630:Emergencies; D004638:Emergency Treatment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D006757:Hospital Units / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors