Rapid Response Team Activations at Schneider Children`s Medical Center of Israel: Analysis of 614 Events

Background: Rapid Response Teams (RRT) have been shown to reduce in-hospital mortality and cardiac arrests. There are few articles describing RRT activations outside of North America and Australia.

Methods: The purpose of this study is to analyze 11 years of data collection of RRT activations at Schneider Children`s Medical Center of Israel with 50,000 inpatient hospitalization days and over 55,000 emergency department visits per year

Results: During the study period there were 614 RRT activations with an average of 56 activations per year (range 43-76). RRT activations occurred most commonly for children 0-12 months (43%) as compared to children 1-5 years (25%), 11-18 years (18%) and 6-10 years (12%); 2% of activations were for adult visitors or staff. The most common reason for activation was respiratory deterioration (45.8%) followed by neurologic alteration (21%) and cardiac arrest (18%). 47% were admitted to the PICU after resuscitation and 12% were pronounced dead. Intubation was performed in 48.9% of activations, chest compressions in 20.5%, IO insertion in 9.4%, and defibrillation in 3.4%. All procedures were more commonly performed in the ED.

Conclusions: The high frequency of interventions should be utilized to direct staff training for the RRT and the ED staff. The lack of standardization of reporting data for RRT activations makes comparisons between different hospitals and medical systems difficult.