title: Pharmacists as Members of the Rapid Response Team.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Rapid response teams (RRTs) have been developed to provide early therapy to patients with risk factors for cardiopulmonary arrest. We sought to investigate the role a pharmacist could have as a member of the RRT.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two pharmacists trained in critical care and emergency medicine proposed a pilot program to determine whether a pharmacist as a member of the RRT could help to optimize pharmacotherapy and facilitate medication administration. During response, 1 pharmacist was at the bedside with the RRT for patient evaluation, consult, chart review, and to facilitate medication administration. The responding RRT pharmacist collected patient demographics, medications administered, pharmacotherapy recommendations, and time commitment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The pharmacists responded to 32 RRT alerts. A majority (65.6%) of patients required at least 1 medication, and a total of 45 medications were administered. The pharmacists performed 49 pharmacotherapy-related interventions in 21 patients. These included medication facilitation (15), dose (15) or therapy (8) recommendations, and adding (6) or discontinuing (5) a medication. The pharmacists spent a median time of 15 minutes (interquartile range [IQR] 15, range 2-70) for each RRT alert and a total of 612 minutes (10.2 hours).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With a minimal time commitment, pharmacists can be valuable members of the RRT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Christine M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Groth
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA nicole_acquisto@urmc.rochester.edu.
authors.forename: Nicole M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Acquisto
mesh_terms: D061345:Early Medical Intervention / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000188:drug therapy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010595:Pharmacists; D010865:Pilot Projects; D024382:Professional Role; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: critical care; emergency medical teams; emergency medicine; pharmacists; rapid response