Measures are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Rapid Response Team.  One key measure is the monthly percent of all codes occurring outside the intensive care unit (ICU), excluding Emergency Department (ED) codes.  The purpose of a Rapid Response Team is to support the hospital personnel outside of the ICU and the ED, and therefore it is expected that the early intervention of the Rapid Response Team will decrease the number of patients who are coding outside of the ICU.  The results can be tracked over time to assess whether the changes being made are leading to reduction in the rate of codes outside the ICU.

"Codes" are defined as patients requiring cardiopulmonary resuscitation or intubation.

[NOTE: ED codes are not included because the Rapid Response Team is generally used to support and help all areas of the hospital except for the ED and ICU.  Since the Rapid Response Team will not impact codes in the ED, they are excluded from this measure.]

Decrease the overall number of codes occurring outside the ICU by 50 percent in 12 months.

Each month, determine the location in which each code occurs from code logs and records. One possible data collection strategy is as follows:

• Each call to the Rapid Response Team should result in the completion of a documentation form or record (such as the Rapid Response Team Record). These records should be kept in a central location (paper log book, electronic record, etc.) and serve as the source of data.

Calculate this measure each month as follows:

1. Determine the number of in-hospital codes (crash calls) that occurred outside the ICU (excluding codes in the ED) for the current month
2. Determine the total number of in-hospital codes (crash calls) for the current month (exclucing codes in the ED)
3. Calculate the monthly percent of codes (crash calls) outside the ICU as:  (Total number in-hospital codes outside the ICU, excluding ED) / (Total number of in-hospital codes, excluding ED) x 100