Proactive Rounding by RRT

Rapid response teams (RRT) have been promoted by numerous patient safety organizations to reduce preventable in‐hospital deaths.14 Initial studies of RRTs were promising,57 but recent literature,811 including systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, has called these findings into question. Nevertheless, RRTs remain popular in academic and community hospitals worldwide, and many have expanded their roles beyond solely responding to the deteriorating patient.12

Some RRTs, for example, proactively round on seriously ill ward patients and patients recently discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) in an effort to prevent transitions to higher levels of care. Priestley and colleagues demonstrated that institution of such a team, referred to as a critical care outreach team (CCOT), decreased in‐hospital mortality while possibly increasing hospital length of stay (LOS).13 Three additional single‐center studies from the United Kingdom, where CCOTs are common, specifically examined proactive rounding by CCOTs on the ICU readmission rate: 2 observed no improvement,14, 15 while the third, limited by a small sample size, demonstrated a modest reduction in ICU readmissions.16

We sought to determine the impact of proactive rounding by an RRT on patients discharged from intensive care on the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU. We hypothesized that proactive rounding by an RRT would decrease the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and the in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

ICU Readmission Rate

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the ICU readmission rate (6.7% preintervention vs 7.3% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). In the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no net effect on the odds of ICU readmission (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] for net intervention effect 0.98, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.42, 2.28), with similar secular trends both preintervention (AOR 1.00 per year, 95% CI 0.97, 1.03), and afterwards (AOR 0.99 per year, 95% CI 0.98, 01.00), and a nonsignificant increase at implementation (Table 2). Figure 1 uses solid lines to show the fitted readmission rates, a hatched line to show the projection of the preintervention secular trend into the postintervention period, and circles to represent adjusted monthly means. The lack of a net intervention effect is indicated by the convergence of the solid and hatched lines 24 months postintervention.

Figure 1

Table 2.Adjusted Impact of Proactive Rounding by an RRT on Clinical Outcomes

Outcome: Summary Effect Measure	Value (95% CI)	P Value
NOTE: ICU readmission model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (chronic pulmonary disease, weight loss, anemia, neurological disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Length of stay model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (drug abuse, rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, weight loss, paralysis, pulmonary circulation disease, neurological disorders, hypothyroidism, peptic ulcer disease, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Mortality model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (weight loss, lymphoma, metastatic cancer, chronic pulmonary and pulmonary circulation disease, and paralysis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; ICU, intensive care unit; RRT, rapid response teams.
ICU readmission rateadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.97, 1.03)	0.98
Change at RRT implementation	1.24 (0.94, 1.63)	0.13
Post‐RRT trend	0.98 (0.97, 1.00)	0.06
Change in trend	0.98 (0.96, 1.02)	0.39
Net intervention effect	0.92 (0.40, 2.12)	0.85
ICU average length of stayadjusted ratio of means
Trend at 9 mo pre‐RRT	0.98 (0.96, 1.00)	0.05
Trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.02 (0.99, 1.04)	0.19
Change in trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.03 (1.00, 1.07)	0.07
Change at RRT implementation	0.92 (0.80, 1.06)	0.27
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.99, 1.00)	0.35
Change in trend at RRT implementation	0.98 (0.96, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.60 (0.31, 1.18)	0.14
In‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICUadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.02 (0.99, 1.06)	0.15
Change at RRT implementation	0.74 (0.51, 1.08)	0.12
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.98, 1.01)	0.68
Change in trend	0.97 (0.94, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.39 (0.14, 1.10)	0.08

ICU Average LOS

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in ICU average LOS (5.1 days preintervention vs 4.9 days postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Trends in ICU LOS may have changed in October 2006 (P = 0.07), decreasing in the first half of the study period (adjusted rate ratio [ARR] 0.98 per year, 95% CI 0.961.00), but did not change significantly thereafter. As with the ICU readmission rate, neither the change in estimated secular trend after implementation (ARR 0.98, 95% CI 0.961.01), nor the net effect of the intervention (ARR 0.62, 95% CI 0.321.22) was statistically significant (Table 2); these results are depicted graphically in Figure 2.

Figure 2

In‐Hospital Mortality of Patients Discharged From the ICU

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU (6.0% preintervention vs 5.5% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Similarly, in the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no statistically significant net effect on the mortality outcome (Table 2 and Figure 3).

Figure 3

DISCUSSION

In this single center study, introduction of an RRT that proactively rounded on patients discharged from the ICU did not reduce the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, or mortality of patients discharged from the ICU, after accounting for secular trends using robust ITS methods and adjusting for patient level factors.

Our study is consistent with 2 smaller studies that assessed the impact of proactive rounding by a CCOT on ICU readmission rate. Leary and Ridley14 found that proactively rounding by a CCOT did not reduce ICU readmissions or shorten the ICU LOS, although this study was limited by a surprisingly low ICU readmission rate and short ICU LOS prior to the intervention. Another study15 also observed no change in the ICU readmission rate following introduction of a proactively rounding CCOT but noted small reductions in both ICU and hospital mortality. The sole study showing an effect16 observed a lower ICU readmission rate and increased survival to hospital discharge (after excluding do not resuscitate [DNR] patients) with implementation of a CCOT, although some of their findings may be explained by their CCOT's use of palliative care services, a function not featured in our model.

Our study adds to the meta‐analyses and systematic reviews810 that have questioned the hypothesis that a trained and proactive team of caregivers should be able to prevent patients from returning to the ICU. Perhaps one reason why this is not true is that proactive rounding by RRTs may have minimal effect in systems where step‐down beds are readily available. At UCSF, nearly every patient transferred out of the ICU is triaged to a step‐down unit, where telemetry and pulse oximetry are continuously monitored. Despite this, however, our institution's 2 step‐down units generate more calls to our RRT than any other units in the hospital.

We were surprised to see that proactive rounding failed to shorten ICU LOS, hypothesizing that clinicians would be more comfortable discharging patients from the ICU knowing that the RRT would be closely monitoring them afterwards. Although we have no data to support this hypothesis, increased use of the RRT may have also increased step‐down bed use, as patients on the general medicalsurgical floors were transferred to a higher level of care upon recommendation of the RRT, thereby delaying transfers out of the ICU. Moreover, the opening of an additional 16‐bed ICU in October 2008 might have encouraged clinicians to transfer patients back to the ICU simply because beds were more easily accessible than before.

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was also not associated with differences in the mortality rate of patients discharged from the ICU. This finding conflicts with the results of Garcea et al,15 Ball et al,16 and Priestley et al13, all of which found that implementation of a CCOT led to small but statistically significant reductions in in‐hospital mortality. All 3 of these studies, however, examined smaller patient populations (1380, 470, and 2903 patients, respectively), and both the Priestley and Ball studies13, 16 had significantly shorter periods of data collection (24 months and 32 weeks, respectively). Our results are based on models with confidence intervals and P values that account for variability in all 3 underlying effect estimates but assume a linear extrapolation of the preintervention trend. This approach allowed us to flexibly deal with changes related to the intervention, while relying on our large sample size to define time trends not dealt with adequately (or at all) in previous research.

The lack of improvement in outcomes cannot be attributed to immaturity of the RRT or failure of the clinical staff to use the RRT adequately. A prespecified secondary data analysis midway through the postintervention time period demonstrated that the RRT failed to gain efficacy with time with respect to all 3 outcomes. The postintervention RRT was also utilized far more frequently than its predecessor (110.6 vs 2.7 calls per 1000 admissions, respectively), and this degree of RRT utilization far surpasses the dose considered to be indicative of a mature RRT system.12

Our study has several limitations. First, we relied on administrative rather than chart‐collected data to determine the reason for ICU admission, and the APR severity of illness and risk of mortality scores. It seems unlikely, however, that coding deficiencies or biases affected the preintervention and postintervention patient populations differently. Even though we adjusted for all available measures, it is possible that we were not able to account for time trends in all potential confounders. Second, we did not have detailed clinical information on reasons for ICU readmission and whether readmissions occurred before or after the RRT proactively rounded on the patient. Therefore, potential readmissions to the ICU that might have been planned or which would have happened regardless of the presence of the RRT, such as for antibiotic desensitization, could not be accounted for. Third, introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT in June 2007 was accompanied by a change in the RRT's composition, from a physician‐led model to a nurse‐led model. Therefore, inherent differences in the way that physicians and nurses might assess and triage patients could not have been adjusted for. Lastly, this was a retrospective study conducted at a single academic medical center with a specific RRT model, and our results may not be directly applicable to nonteaching settings or to different RRT models.

Our findings raise further questions about the benefits of RRTs as they assume additional roles, such as proactive rounding on patients recently discharged from the ICU. The failure of our RRT to reduce the ICU readmission rate, the ICU average LOS, and the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU raises concerns that the benefits of our RRT are not commensurate with its cost. While defining the degree of impact and underlying mechanisms are worthy of prospective study, hospitals seeking to improve their RRT models should consider how to develop systems that achieve the RRT's promise in measurable ways.

Rapid response teams (RRT) have been promoted by numerous patient safety organizations to reduce preventable in‐hospital deaths.14 Initial studies of RRTs were promising,57 but recent literature,811 including systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, has called these findings into question. Nevertheless, RRTs remain popular in academic and community hospitals worldwide, and many have expanded their roles beyond solely responding to the deteriorating patient.12

Some RRTs, for example, proactively round on seriously ill ward patients and patients recently discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) in an effort to prevent transitions to higher levels of care. Priestley and colleagues demonstrated that institution of such a team, referred to as a critical care outreach team (CCOT), decreased in‐hospital mortality while possibly increasing hospital length of stay (LOS).13 Three additional single‐center studies from the United Kingdom, where CCOTs are common, specifically examined proactive rounding by CCOTs on the ICU readmission rate: 2 observed no improvement,14, 15 while the third, limited by a small sample size, demonstrated a modest reduction in ICU readmissions.16

We sought to determine the impact of proactive rounding by an RRT on patients discharged from intensive care on the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU. We hypothesized that proactive rounding by an RRT would decrease the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and the in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

ICU Readmission Rate

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the ICU readmission rate (6.7% preintervention vs 7.3% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). In the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no net effect on the odds of ICU readmission (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] for net intervention effect 0.98, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.42, 2.28), with similar secular trends both preintervention (AOR 1.00 per year, 95% CI 0.97, 1.03), and afterwards (AOR 0.99 per year, 95% CI 0.98, 01.00), and a nonsignificant increase at implementation (Table 2). Figure 1 uses solid lines to show the fitted readmission rates, a hatched line to show the projection of the preintervention secular trend into the postintervention period, and circles to represent adjusted monthly means. The lack of a net intervention effect is indicated by the convergence of the solid and hatched lines 24 months postintervention.

Figure 1

Table 2.Adjusted Impact of Proactive Rounding by an RRT on Clinical Outcomes

Outcome: Summary Effect Measure	Value (95% CI)	P Value
NOTE: ICU readmission model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (chronic pulmonary disease, weight loss, anemia, neurological disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Length of stay model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (drug abuse, rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, weight loss, paralysis, pulmonary circulation disease, neurological disorders, hypothyroidism, peptic ulcer disease, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Mortality model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (weight loss, lymphoma, metastatic cancer, chronic pulmonary and pulmonary circulation disease, and paralysis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; ICU, intensive care unit; RRT, rapid response teams.
ICU readmission rateadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.97, 1.03)	0.98
Change at RRT implementation	1.24 (0.94, 1.63)	0.13
Post‐RRT trend	0.98 (0.97, 1.00)	0.06
Change in trend	0.98 (0.96, 1.02)	0.39
Net intervention effect	0.92 (0.40, 2.12)	0.85
ICU average length of stayadjusted ratio of means
Trend at 9 mo pre‐RRT	0.98 (0.96, 1.00)	0.05
Trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.02 (0.99, 1.04)	0.19
Change in trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.03 (1.00, 1.07)	0.07
Change at RRT implementation	0.92 (0.80, 1.06)	0.27
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.99, 1.00)	0.35
Change in trend at RRT implementation	0.98 (0.96, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.60 (0.31, 1.18)	0.14
In‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICUadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.02 (0.99, 1.06)	0.15
Change at RRT implementation	0.74 (0.51, 1.08)	0.12
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.98, 1.01)	0.68
Change in trend	0.97 (0.94, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.39 (0.14, 1.10)	0.08

ICU Average LOS

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in ICU average LOS (5.1 days preintervention vs 4.9 days postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Trends in ICU LOS may have changed in October 2006 (P = 0.07), decreasing in the first half of the study period (adjusted rate ratio [ARR] 0.98 per year, 95% CI 0.961.00), but did not change significantly thereafter. As with the ICU readmission rate, neither the change in estimated secular trend after implementation (ARR 0.98, 95% CI 0.961.01), nor the net effect of the intervention (ARR 0.62, 95% CI 0.321.22) was statistically significant (Table 2); these results are depicted graphically in Figure 2.

Figure 2

In‐Hospital Mortality of Patients Discharged From the ICU

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU (6.0% preintervention vs 5.5% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Similarly, in the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no statistically significant net effect on the mortality outcome (Table 2 and Figure 3).

Figure 3

DISCUSSION

In this single center study, introduction of an RRT that proactively rounded on patients discharged from the ICU did not reduce the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, or mortality of patients discharged from the ICU, after accounting for secular trends using robust ITS methods and adjusting for patient level factors.

Our study is consistent with 2 smaller studies that assessed the impact of proactive rounding by a CCOT on ICU readmission rate. Leary and Ridley14 found that proactively rounding by a CCOT did not reduce ICU readmissions or shorten the ICU LOS, although this study was limited by a surprisingly low ICU readmission rate and short ICU LOS prior to the intervention. Another study15 also observed no change in the ICU readmission rate following introduction of a proactively rounding CCOT but noted small reductions in both ICU and hospital mortality. The sole study showing an effect16 observed a lower ICU readmission rate and increased survival to hospital discharge (after excluding do not resuscitate [DNR] patients) with implementation of a CCOT, although some of their findings may be explained by their CCOT's use of palliative care services, a function not featured in our model.

Our study adds to the meta‐analyses and systematic reviews810 that have questioned the hypothesis that a trained and proactive team of caregivers should be able to prevent patients from returning to the ICU. Perhaps one reason why this is not true is that proactive rounding by RRTs may have minimal effect in systems where step‐down beds are readily available. At UCSF, nearly every patient transferred out of the ICU is triaged to a step‐down unit, where telemetry and pulse oximetry are continuously monitored. Despite this, however, our institution's 2 step‐down units generate more calls to our RRT than any other units in the hospital.

We were surprised to see that proactive rounding failed to shorten ICU LOS, hypothesizing that clinicians would be more comfortable discharging patients from the ICU knowing that the RRT would be closely monitoring them afterwards. Although we have no data to support this hypothesis, increased use of the RRT may have also increased step‐down bed use, as patients on the general medicalsurgical floors were transferred to a higher level of care upon recommendation of the RRT, thereby delaying transfers out of the ICU. Moreover, the opening of an additional 16‐bed ICU in October 2008 might have encouraged clinicians to transfer patients back to the ICU simply because beds were more easily accessible than before.

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was also not associated with differences in the mortality rate of patients discharged from the ICU. This finding conflicts with the results of Garcea et al,15 Ball et al,16 and Priestley et al13, all of which found that implementation of a CCOT led to small but statistically significant reductions in in‐hospital mortality. All 3 of these studies, however, examined smaller patient populations (1380, 470, and 2903 patients, respectively), and both the Priestley and Ball studies13, 16 had significantly shorter periods of data collection (24 months and 32 weeks, respectively). Our results are based on models with confidence intervals and P values that account for variability in all 3 underlying effect estimates but assume a linear extrapolation of the preintervention trend. This approach allowed us to flexibly deal with changes related to the intervention, while relying on our large sample size to define time trends not dealt with adequately (or at all) in previous research.

The lack of improvement in outcomes cannot be attributed to immaturity of the RRT or failure of the clinical staff to use the RRT adequately. A prespecified secondary data analysis midway through the postintervention time period demonstrated that the RRT failed to gain efficacy with time with respect to all 3 outcomes. The postintervention RRT was also utilized far more frequently than its predecessor (110.6 vs 2.7 calls per 1000 admissions, respectively), and this degree of RRT utilization far surpasses the dose considered to be indicative of a mature RRT system.12

Our study has several limitations. First, we relied on administrative rather than chart‐collected data to determine the reason for ICU admission, and the APR severity of illness and risk of mortality scores. It seems unlikely, however, that coding deficiencies or biases affected the preintervention and postintervention patient populations differently. Even though we adjusted for all available measures, it is possible that we were not able to account for time trends in all potential confounders. Second, we did not have detailed clinical information on reasons for ICU readmission and whether readmissions occurred before or after the RRT proactively rounded on the patient. Therefore, potential readmissions to the ICU that might have been planned or which would have happened regardless of the presence of the RRT, such as for antibiotic desensitization, could not be accounted for. Third, introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT in June 2007 was accompanied by a change in the RRT's composition, from a physician‐led model to a nurse‐led model. Therefore, inherent differences in the way that physicians and nurses might assess and triage patients could not have been adjusted for. Lastly, this was a retrospective study conducted at a single academic medical center with a specific RRT model, and our results may not be directly applicable to nonteaching settings or to different RRT models.

Our findings raise further questions about the benefits of RRTs as they assume additional roles, such as proactive rounding on patients recently discharged from the ICU. The failure of our RRT to reduce the ICU readmission rate, the ICU average LOS, and the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU raises concerns that the benefits of our RRT are not commensurate with its cost. While defining the degree of impact and underlying mechanisms are worthy of prospective study, hospitals seeking to improve their RRT models should consider how to develop systems that achieve the RRT's promise in measurable ways.

Rapid response teams (RRT) have been promoted by numerous patient safety organizations to reduce preventable in‐hospital deaths.14 Initial studies of RRTs were promising,57 but recent literature,811 including systematic reviews and meta‐analyses, has called these findings into question. Nevertheless, RRTs remain popular in academic and community hospitals worldwide, and many have expanded their roles beyond solely responding to the deteriorating patient.12

Some RRTs, for example, proactively round on seriously ill ward patients and patients recently discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) in an effort to prevent transitions to higher levels of care. Priestley and colleagues demonstrated that institution of such a team, referred to as a critical care outreach team (CCOT), decreased in‐hospital mortality while possibly increasing hospital length of stay (LOS).13 Three additional single‐center studies from the United Kingdom, where CCOTs are common, specifically examined proactive rounding by CCOTs on the ICU readmission rate: 2 observed no improvement,14, 15 while the third, limited by a small sample size, demonstrated a modest reduction in ICU readmissions.16

We sought to determine the impact of proactive rounding by an RRT on patients discharged from intensive care on the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU. We hypothesized that proactive rounding by an RRT would decrease the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, and the in‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICU.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

ICU Readmission Rate

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the ICU readmission rate (6.7% preintervention vs 7.3% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). In the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no net effect on the odds of ICU readmission (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] for net intervention effect 0.98, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.42, 2.28), with similar secular trends both preintervention (AOR 1.00 per year, 95% CI 0.97, 1.03), and afterwards (AOR 0.99 per year, 95% CI 0.98, 01.00), and a nonsignificant increase at implementation (Table 2). Figure 1 uses solid lines to show the fitted readmission rates, a hatched line to show the projection of the preintervention secular trend into the postintervention period, and circles to represent adjusted monthly means. The lack of a net intervention effect is indicated by the convergence of the solid and hatched lines 24 months postintervention.

Figure 1

Table 2.Adjusted Impact of Proactive Rounding by an RRT on Clinical Outcomes

Outcome: Summary Effect Measure	Value (95% CI)	P Value
NOTE: ICU readmission model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (chronic pulmonary disease, weight loss, anemia, neurological disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Length of stay model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (drug abuse, rheumatoid arthritis, anemia, weight loss, paralysis, pulmonary circulation disease, neurological disorders, hypothyroidism, peptic ulcer disease, and solid tumors without metastasis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Mortality model adjusted for attending service, age, race/ethnicity, comorbidities (weight loss, lymphoma, metastatic cancer, chronic pulmonary and pulmonary circulation disease, and paralysis), and clustering at the attending physician level. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; ICU, intensive care unit; RRT, rapid response teams.
ICU readmission rateadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.97, 1.03)	0.98
Change at RRT implementation	1.24 (0.94, 1.63)	0.13
Post‐RRT trend	0.98 (0.97, 1.00)	0.06
Change in trend	0.98 (0.96, 1.02)	0.39
Net intervention effect	0.92 (0.40, 2.12)	0.85
ICU average length of stayadjusted ratio of means
Trend at 9 mo pre‐RRT	0.98 (0.96, 1.00)	0.05
Trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.02 (0.99, 1.04)	0.19
Change in trend at 3 mo pre‐RRT	1.03 (1.00, 1.07)	0.07
Change at RRT implementation	0.92 (0.80, 1.06)	0.27
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.99, 1.00)	0.35
Change in trend at RRT implementation	0.98 (0.96, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.60 (0.31, 1.18)	0.14
In‐hospital mortality of patients discharged from the ICUadjusted odds ratio
Pre‐RRT trend	1.02 (0.99, 1.06)	0.15
Change at RRT implementation	0.74 (0.51, 1.08)	0.12
Post‐RRT trend	1.00 (0.98, 1.01)	0.68
Change in trend	0.97 (0.94, 1.01)	0.14
Net intervention effect	0.39 (0.14, 1.10)	0.08

ICU Average LOS

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in ICU average LOS (5.1 days preintervention vs 4.9 days postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Trends in ICU LOS may have changed in October 2006 (P = 0.07), decreasing in the first half of the study period (adjusted rate ratio [ARR] 0.98 per year, 95% CI 0.961.00), but did not change significantly thereafter. As with the ICU readmission rate, neither the change in estimated secular trend after implementation (ARR 0.98, 95% CI 0.961.01), nor the net effect of the intervention (ARR 0.62, 95% CI 0.321.22) was statistically significant (Table 2); these results are depicted graphically in Figure 2.

Figure 2

In‐Hospital Mortality of Patients Discharged From the ICU

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was not associated with unadjusted differences in the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU (6.0% preintervention vs 5.5% postintervention, P = 0.24; Table 1). Similarly, in the adjusted ITS model, the intervention had no statistically significant net effect on the mortality outcome (Table 2 and Figure 3).

Figure 3

DISCUSSION

In this single center study, introduction of an RRT that proactively rounded on patients discharged from the ICU did not reduce the ICU readmission rate, ICU LOS, or mortality of patients discharged from the ICU, after accounting for secular trends using robust ITS methods and adjusting for patient level factors.

Our study is consistent with 2 smaller studies that assessed the impact of proactive rounding by a CCOT on ICU readmission rate. Leary and Ridley14 found that proactively rounding by a CCOT did not reduce ICU readmissions or shorten the ICU LOS, although this study was limited by a surprisingly low ICU readmission rate and short ICU LOS prior to the intervention. Another study15 also observed no change in the ICU readmission rate following introduction of a proactively rounding CCOT but noted small reductions in both ICU and hospital mortality. The sole study showing an effect16 observed a lower ICU readmission rate and increased survival to hospital discharge (after excluding do not resuscitate [DNR] patients) with implementation of a CCOT, although some of their findings may be explained by their CCOT's use of palliative care services, a function not featured in our model.

Our study adds to the meta‐analyses and systematic reviews810 that have questioned the hypothesis that a trained and proactive team of caregivers should be able to prevent patients from returning to the ICU. Perhaps one reason why this is not true is that proactive rounding by RRTs may have minimal effect in systems where step‐down beds are readily available. At UCSF, nearly every patient transferred out of the ICU is triaged to a step‐down unit, where telemetry and pulse oximetry are continuously monitored. Despite this, however, our institution's 2 step‐down units generate more calls to our RRT than any other units in the hospital.

We were surprised to see that proactive rounding failed to shorten ICU LOS, hypothesizing that clinicians would be more comfortable discharging patients from the ICU knowing that the RRT would be closely monitoring them afterwards. Although we have no data to support this hypothesis, increased use of the RRT may have also increased step‐down bed use, as patients on the general medicalsurgical floors were transferred to a higher level of care upon recommendation of the RRT, thereby delaying transfers out of the ICU. Moreover, the opening of an additional 16‐bed ICU in October 2008 might have encouraged clinicians to transfer patients back to the ICU simply because beds were more easily accessible than before.

Introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT was also not associated with differences in the mortality rate of patients discharged from the ICU. This finding conflicts with the results of Garcea et al,15 Ball et al,16 and Priestley et al13, all of which found that implementation of a CCOT led to small but statistically significant reductions in in‐hospital mortality. All 3 of these studies, however, examined smaller patient populations (1380, 470, and 2903 patients, respectively), and both the Priestley and Ball studies13, 16 had significantly shorter periods of data collection (24 months and 32 weeks, respectively). Our results are based on models with confidence intervals and P values that account for variability in all 3 underlying effect estimates but assume a linear extrapolation of the preintervention trend. This approach allowed us to flexibly deal with changes related to the intervention, while relying on our large sample size to define time trends not dealt with adequately (or at all) in previous research.

The lack of improvement in outcomes cannot be attributed to immaturity of the RRT or failure of the clinical staff to use the RRT adequately. A prespecified secondary data analysis midway through the postintervention time period demonstrated that the RRT failed to gain efficacy with time with respect to all 3 outcomes. The postintervention RRT was also utilized far more frequently than its predecessor (110.6 vs 2.7 calls per 1000 admissions, respectively), and this degree of RRT utilization far surpasses the dose considered to be indicative of a mature RRT system.12

Our study has several limitations. First, we relied on administrative rather than chart‐collected data to determine the reason for ICU admission, and the APR severity of illness and risk of mortality scores. It seems unlikely, however, that coding deficiencies or biases affected the preintervention and postintervention patient populations differently. Even though we adjusted for all available measures, it is possible that we were not able to account for time trends in all potential confounders. Second, we did not have detailed clinical information on reasons for ICU readmission and whether readmissions occurred before or after the RRT proactively rounded on the patient. Therefore, potential readmissions to the ICU that might have been planned or which would have happened regardless of the presence of the RRT, such as for antibiotic desensitization, could not be accounted for. Third, introduction of proactive rounding by the RRT in June 2007 was accompanied by a change in the RRT's composition, from a physician‐led model to a nurse‐led model. Therefore, inherent differences in the way that physicians and nurses might assess and triage patients could not have been adjusted for. Lastly, this was a retrospective study conducted at a single academic medical center with a specific RRT model, and our results may not be directly applicable to nonteaching settings or to different RRT models.

Our findings raise further questions about the benefits of RRTs as they assume additional roles, such as proactive rounding on patients recently discharged from the ICU. The failure of our RRT to reduce the ICU readmission rate, the ICU average LOS, and the mortality of patients discharged from the ICU raises concerns that the benefits of our RRT are not commensurate with its cost. While defining the degree of impact and underlying mechanisms are worthy of prospective study, hospitals seeking to improve their RRT models should consider how to develop systems that achieve the RRT's promise in measurable ways.