Medical emergency teams and rapid response triggers - the ongoing quest for the 'perfect' patient safety system
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* Corresponding author: Philip F Stahel philip.stahel@dhha.org
1 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Department of Neurosurgery, Denver Health Medical Center, University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine, Bannock Street, Denver, CO 80204, USA
2 Department of Patient Safety and Quality, and Department of Internal Medicine, Denver Health Medical Center, University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine, Bannock Street, Denver, Denver, CO 80204, USA
Critical Care 2009, 13:420 doi:10.1186/cc8052
Published: 9 October 2009First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
We read with interest the article by Iyengar and colleagues [1] on the impact of standardized implementation of medical emergency teams (METs) for the early identification and management of acutely deteriorating patients on the ward. The vast majority (88%) of all preventable adverse events were classified as 'therapeutic errors'. The authors have to be commended for their proactive patient safety approach by implementation of a standardized method for root cause analysis and classification of preventable adverse events.