The patient-at-risk team: identifying and managing seriously ill ward patients

A 'patient-at-risk team', established to allow the early identification of seriously ill patients on hospital wards, made 69 assessments on 63 patient s over 6 months. Predefined physiological criteria were not able to reliabl y predict which patients would be admitted to the intensive care unit. The incidence of cardiopulmonary resuscitation before intensive care admission was 3.6% for patients seen by the team and 30.4% for those not seen (p < 0. 005). Of admissions seen by the team, 25% died on the intensive care unit c ompared with 45% of those not seen (not significant, p = 0.07). Among those not seen by the team, mortality was 40% for those who did not require resu scitation and 57% for those who did (not significant). Many critically ill ward patients had abnormal physiological values before intensive care unit admission. Identification of critically ill patients on the ward and early advice and active management are likely to prevent the need for cardiopulmo nary resuscitation and to improve outcome.