Birmingham – A Birmingham hospital is receiving accolades for its rapid response team that's being credited with lowering mortality rates and improving care.
Brookwood Medical Center followed guidelines by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and instituted a rapid-response team in November 2005.
The team responds to patients before they code - or go into cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Many hospitals have teams that respond quickly after a patient codes, but the concept of responding beforehand is relatively new.
In two years, Brookwood has had a 53 percent reduction in the number of patients outside the intensive care unit who have coded. The overall reduction is 24 percent.
More than 90 percent of patients treated by rapid-response teams survive, compared to only 15 percent of patients who go into cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Brookwood is the only hospital in Alabama that's been designated as a "mentor" hospital by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)