The impact of proactive rounding on rapid response team calls: an observational study

ABSTRACTBackground: Rapid response teams (RRTs) improve mortality by intervening in the hours preceding arrest. Implementation of these teams varies across institutions.Setting and Design: Our health-care system has two different RRT models at two hospitals: Hospital A does not utilize a proactive rounder while Hospital B does. We studied the patterns of RRT calls at each hospital focusing on the differences between night and day and during nursing shift transitions.Results: The presence of proactive surveillance appeared to be associated with an increased total number of RRT calls with more than twice as many calls made at the smaller Hospital B than Hospital A. Hospital B had more calls in the daytime compared to the nighttime. Both hospitals showed a surge in the night-to-day shift transition (7–8am) compared to the preceding nighttime. Hospital A additionally showed a surge in calls during the day-to-night shift transition (7–8pm) compared to the preceding daytime.Conclusions: Differences in the diurn...