Introduction of an obstetric-specific medical emergency team for obstetric crises: implementation and experience

We describe the implementation and experience with adding an obstetric-specific medical emergency team (called Condition O for obstetric crisis) to an existing rapid response system at Magee-Womens Hospital.

In response to deficits identified during patient safety review of adverse obstetric events in 2004 and 2005, the hospital administration decided to add a crisis team with expertise specifically designed for maternal and/or fetal crises.

During the first 6 months, staff rarely called Condition O (14 per 10,000 obstetric admissions). After reeducation efforts, use of Condition O increased to 62 per 10,000 obstetric admissions during 2006.

We outline our hospital's experience with implementation, efforts to address low utilization, and 1.5 years of Condition O event data. Condition O is a work in progress. In light of this, we discuss the challenges of measuring its patient safety outcome, considerations for team size and composition, and our efforts to determine an optimal Condition O rate.