Medical Emergency Teams (METs) are a preplanned group of health care practitioners who respond to acute patient deteriorations in hospitalized patients. They are usually identical to hospital “code” teams, with the exception that they respond prior to patients’ developing cardiac arrest. This recovery response has been shown to decreased unexpected hospital mortality by some 30% in hospitals in the United States, Australia, and Great Britain.

This course will review the impact on patient safety of METs. Special emphasis will be placed on logistics: how to design the system based on hospital size and provider mix, how to measure the impact of the intervention, how to train staff and change culture, and how to “sell it”. The course will also disseminate to healthcare professionals and institutions the concept of planning systems to find patients in crisis and prevent demise.

Support We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the conference from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the American Heart Association, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, the Society for Critical Care Medicine, the Canadian Resuscitation Institute and the Joint Commission Resources.