Use of medical emergency team (MET) responses to detect medical errors.

BACKGROUND No previous studies have investigated whether medical emergency team (MET) responses can be used to detect medical errors. OBJECTIVES To determine whether review of MET responses can be used as a surveillance method for detecting medical errors. METHODS Charts of all patients receiving MET responses during an 8 month period were reviewed by a hospital based Quality Improvement Committee to establish if the clinical deterioration that prompted the MET response was associated with a medical error (defined as an adverse event that was preventable with the current state of medical knowledge). Medical errors were categorized as diagnostic, treatment, or preventive errors using a descriptive typology based on previous published reports. RESULTS Three hundred and sixty four consecutive MET responses underwent chart review and 114 (31.3%) were associated with medical errors: 77 (67.5%) were categorized as diagnostic errors, 68 (59.6%) as treatment errors, and 30 (26.3%) as prevention errors. Eighteen separate hospital care processes were identified and modified as a result of this review, 10 of which involved standardization. CONCLUSIONS MET review may be used for surveillance to detect medical errors and to identify and modify processes of care that underlie those errors.