BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Hospital has created a Medical Emergency Team (MET) to bring critical care to the bedside in the event an urgent, life-threatening situation arises in a non-critical care area of the hospital. The team consists of a physician and two registered nurses specially trained in providing urgent critical care to patients in need.

“The MET is a highly trained team prepared to respond at a moment’s notice at the first sign that a patient may be experiencing an unanticipated crisis,” said Mike Moran, R.N., M.S.N., manager of the new UAB Hospital Department of Resuscitation. “The team can initiate resuscitation efforts and stabilize the situation with the goal of preventing a patient from developing full cardiac arrest.”

The MET will respond to standard hospital units if monitored vital signs or a nurse’s observation indicates an acute change in a patient’s condition.

“The MET will create a system that enhances our patient’s safety and provides a timely, trained response to a crisis,” said Michael Waldrum, M.D., chief executive officer of UAB Hospital. “The MET brings critical care experience to non-critical care areas.”

Beginning in June, the team will operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Physicians on the team will be drawn from the departments of emergency medicine and anesthesiology and the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine.

The Department of Resuscitation will provide training for team members as well as offer continuing medical education classes for health care professionals.

The department also has purchased two state-of-the-art resuscitation manikins to facilitate training. The $160,000 manikins are computer controlled and can be programmed to mimic a variety of disease states.

“These manikins provide an incredibly close simulation of a real person,” Moran said. “They breathe, have blood pressure and a pulse rate. And they react to the resuscitation treatments as they are performed.”

Moran says the simulators will be available for physicians, residents, nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, medical students and others. Video and audio recordings of resuscitation efforts are recorded for later critique. The simulator is the only in-hospital unit of its kind in the state.