MedTechbloggen

Från 6minutes.com har MedTechbloggen fått följande text författad av Jared Reed, 25 February 2010:

“Unexpected cardiac deaths and mortality rates have fallen since the introduction of medical emergency teams in hospitals, but the change has been gradual and seen only after a few years, figures from Melbourne show.
A study analysed all patients admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne in three six-month periods between 2002-2007, or prospectively since the team was introduced, and retrospectively between 1993-2007.
The researchers found that the introduction of the team was associated with a progressive decline of unexpected cardiac arrests within two years, and of unexpected mortality with four years. Prior to this, hospital mortality had remained stable for many years.
“The full impact of a MET may take some years to achieve as it involves cultural change for an institution,” write the authors in Crit Care Med (2010; 38, 2: 445-450).
They found that increasing intensity of attendances by a medical emergency team was associated with lower mortality and cardiac arrest rates.
A previous randomised and multicentred study on METs was unable to come to the same conclusions, but the authors of the latest study extended the measurement of cardiac arrest and mortality rates to a further two periods over four years after implementation.
“Despite the negative overall result [of the previous study]…evidence mounts that such teams can reduce cardiac arrest rates and improve hospital mortality,” say the authors.“