Association of Pediatric Medical Emergency Teams With Hospital Mortality

Background:Implementation of medical emergency teams has been identified as a potential strategy to reduce hospital deaths, because these teams respond to patients with acute physiological decline in an effort to prevent in-hospital cardiac arrest. However, prior studies of the association between medical emergency teams and hospital mortality have been limited and typically have not accounted for preimplementation mortality trends. Methods:Within the Pediatric Health Information System for freestanding pediatric hospitals, annual risk-adjusted mortality rates were calculated for sites between 2000 and 2015. A random slopes interrupted time series analysis then examined whether implementation of a medical emergency team was associated with lower-than-expected mortality rates based on preimplementation trends. Results:Across 38 pediatric hospitals, mean annual hospital admission volume was 15 854 (range, 6684–33 024), and there were a total of 1 659 059 hospitalizations preimplementation and 4 392 392 hosp...