Features, risk factors, and outcomes of older internal medicine patients triggering a medical emergency team call

Background Information about the epidemiology of older Internal Medicine patients receiving medical emergency team (MET) calls is limited. We assessed the prevalence, characteristics, risk factors, and outcomes of this vulnerable group. Methods Internal Medicine patients aged >75 years who were a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 2022-03, Vol.66 (3), p.392-400
Main Authors: Wijesundera, Piyumi, See, Emily J., Robbins, Raymond, Crosthwaite, Amy, Smallwood, David, Jones, Daryl, Bellomo, Rinaldo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Emergency medical care
Emergency medical services
Emergency Service, Hospital
Epidemiology
Hospital Mortality
Humans
Intensive Care Units
Internal medicine
Length of Stay
medical emergency team
Medicine
Mortality
Patients
Physiological effects
Physiology
rapid response team
Retrospective Studies
Risk analysis
Risk Factors
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Summary:Background Information about the epidemiology of older Internal Medicine patients receiving medical emergency team (MET) calls is limited. We assessed the prevalence, characteristics, risk factors, and outcomes of this vulnerable group. Methods Internal Medicine patients aged >75 years who were admitted via the Emergency Department to a tertiary hospital between January 2015 to December 2018 and who activated a MET call were compared to patients without MET call activation during the same time period. Outcome measures included management post‐MET call, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission rates, discharge disposition, length of hospital stays (LOS), and in‐patient mortality. Results There were 10,803 Internal Medical admissions involving 10,423 patients; median age 85 (IQR 81–89) years. Of these, 995 (10%) patients received at least one MET call. MET call patients had greater physiological instability in the Emergency Department and higher median Charlson comorbidity index values (2, IQR 1–3 vs. 1, IQR 0–2; p 
ISSN:0001-5172
1399-6576
DOI:10.1111/aas.14014