Using Medical Emergency Teams to detect preventable adverse events

Area of Science:

• Patient Safety
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Medical Error Analysis

Background:

• Medical Emergency Teams (METs), or Rapid Response Teams, are crucial patient safety initiatives.
• A key benefit of METs is their potential to systematically identify preventable adverse events, defined as negative outcomes resulting from errors or system flaws.
• This study details a method for using MET calls to detect and analyze preventable adverse events within a hospital setting.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a systematic method for identifying preventable adverse events using Medical Emergency Team calls.
• To report the surveillance results of preventable adverse events identified through MET calls at an academic tertiary care hospital.

Main Methods:

• Standardized data were collected for all consecutive MET calls over a four-week period.
• A multidisciplinary team reviewed MET call data within one week to assess the cause of patient outcomes.
• Preventable adverse events were classified by type and severity using a validated rating scale.

Main Results:

• Data from 65 MET calls were analyzed, with 16 (24%) identified as preventable adverse events.
• The primary cause of preventable adverse events was the failure to provide appropriate therapy despite an accurate diagnosis.
• One specific hospital service was disproportionately associated with preventable adverse events (31% of cases).

Conclusions:

• The MET call review process proved easy to implement and generated significant findings.
• Hospitals with existing METs can adopt this methodology as a cost-effective system for detecting preventable adverse events.
• This approach offers valuable insights for improving patient safety and healthcare quality.