ORIGINAL ARTICLES Critical Care and Resuscitation • Volume 3 Number 16 • September 2014184

cations.htm Original articles Rapid response systems (RRSs) facilitate early recognition of, and response to, deteriorating patients.1 Any member of hospital staff can activate an RRS, guided by objective calling criteria and, once activation occurs, an organisa-tional response is triggered in which experts in the manage-ment of critically ill patients provide assessment and management at the point of care.1,2 RRSs evolved from cardiac arrest teams (CATs), in which organisational responses were triggered by cardiac arrest (unresponsive-ness, apnoea or pulselessness).1 There were three major catalysts for the evolution of RRSs. First, despite advances in resuscitation techniques and training, improvements in cardiac arrest patient outcomes have been modest, an