Breaches of pre-medical emergency team call criteria in an Australian hospital

Objectives and outcomes: To evaluate the 24hrs before medical emergency team (MET) calls to examine: 1) the frequency, nature, and timing of pre-MET criteria breaches; 2) differences in characteristics and outcomes between patients who did and didn't experience pre-MET breaches.Design: Retrospective observational study November 2020-June 2021.Setting: Tertiary referral Australian hospital.Participants: Adults (>= 18 years) experiencing MET calls.Results: Breaches in pre-MET criteria occurred prior to 1886/2255 (83.6%) MET calls, and 1038/1281 (81.0%) of the first MET calls. Patients with pre-MET breaches were older (median [IQR] 72 [57-81] vs 66 [56-77] yrs), more likely to be admitted from home (87.8% vs 81.9%) and via the emergency department (73.0% vs 50.2%), but less likely to be for full resuscitation after (67.3% vs 76.5%) the MET. The three most common pre-MET breaches were low SpO2 (48.0%), high pulse rate (39.8%), and low systolic blood pressure (29.0%) which were present for a median (IQR) of 15.4 (7.5-20.8), 13.2 (4.3-21.0), and 12.6 (3.5-20.1) hrs before the MET call, respectively. Patients with pre-MET breaches were more likely to need intensive care admission within 24 h (15.6 vs 11.9%), have repeat MET calls (33.3 vs 24.7%), and die in hospital (15.8 vs 9.9%).Conclusions: Four -fifths of MET calls were preceded by pre-MET criteria breaches, which were present for many hours. Such patients were older, had more limits of treatment, and experienced worse out-comes. There is a need to improve goals of care documentation and pre-MET management of clinical deterioration.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).