Vital sign abnormalities, rapid response, and adverse outcomes in hospitalized patients

Abstract

Rapid response activation (RRA), triggered chiefly by surpassing threshold vital sign abnormalities (TVSAs), is designed to intervene at the earliest point in a patient's deteriorating course. The authors aimed to quantify the incidence of TVSA among patients hospitalized on acute care units in a hospital that uses rapid response. During the course of 6 months, the authors compared adverse events (mortality, unexpected intensive care unit [ICU] transfers, and cardiopulmonary arrest) and TVSA among patients who triggered an RRA, patients with TVSAs and no RRA, and all other patients. At least 1 TVSA was recorded in 31.9% of stays and 12.2% of patient-days. RRA patients were more likely (22.5%) than other TVSA patients (7.9%) and other patients (1.8%) to have an adverse event (P < .01). Incidence varied by vital sign. During the investigation, only 2.5% of TVSA opportunities triggered an RRA. As systems engage electronic workflows, automatically triggering RRAs based solely on TVSAs could place a tremendous burden on systems.