Integration of a difficult airway response team into a hospital emergency response system

Monika Chmielewska; Bradford D Winters; Vinciya Pandian; Alexander T Hillel

doi:10.1016/j.anclin.2015.02.008

Integration of a difficult airway response team into a hospital emergency response system

Anesthesiol Clin. 2015 Jun;33(2):369-79. doi: 10.1016/j.anclin.2015.02.008.

Authors

Monika Chmielewska¹, Bradford D Winters², Vinciya Pandian³, Alexander T Hillel⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 601 North Caroline Street, 6th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21287-0910, USA.
² Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1800 Orleans Street, Zayed 9127, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
³ Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1800 Orleans Street, Phipps 409, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
⁴ Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 601 North Caroline Street, 6th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21287-0910, USA. Electronic address: ahillel@jhmi.edu.

PMID: 25999009
DOI: 10.1016/j.anclin.2015.02.008

Abstract

Hospital-wide emergency response teams have been an area of development for several decades. Highly specialized to address emergent needs, they mimic the cardiac-pulmonary arrest teams established at hospitals nationwide, such as heart attack, brain attack, medical emergency, rapid response, and difficult airway response teams (DART). The DART at Johns Hopkins Hospital is a collaboration of the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, General Surgery, and Emergency Medicine departments. This successful model may be used by other hospitals to establish improved and comprehensive care of the difficult airway patient.

Keywords: Difficult airway patient; Difficult airway response team; Medical emergency teams; Multidisciplinary; Rapid response system; Rapid response teams.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Airway Management / methods*
Critical Care
Emergency Service, Hospital*
Hospital Rapid Response Team*
Humans
Intubation, Intratracheal*
Program Development
Program Evaluation
Respiratory Insufficiency / therapy*