Medical emergency teams

Abstract

More and more evidence suggests that sick patients on British hospital wards are poorly cared for. The medical emergency team is one possible way of providing support for these patients. The recent Government report, Comprehensive Critical Care, supports the introduction of these teams. Little has been published on the effectiveness of such teams. What evidence there is suggests that there are many sick patients on hospital wards, they can usually be identified by abnormal physiological values, and that early intervention and appropriate support decreases their risk of dying or of having a cardiopulmonary arrest on the ward.