Clinical profile of hospitalized children provided with urgent assistance from a medical emergency team

Abstract

Objective. The purpose of this work was to describe the frequency, characteristics, and outcomes of critical events and hospitalized children requiring medical emergency team review. Patients and Methods. We conducted an audit of prospectively collected medical emergency team forms and a retrospective review of medical charts during an 18-month period at a tertiary pediatric hospital in Australia. Critical events were defined as cardiac arrest, endotracheal intubation on the ward, reversal of analgesia or sedation, fluid resuscitation at ≥ 40 mL/kg, hyponatremia (serum sodium level of ≤ 125 mmol/L), hypernatremia (serum sodium level of ≥ 155 mmol/L), hypoglycemia (glucose level of ≤2 mmol/L)..