New York `Code Blue` Teams Saving Lives

Cardiac arrests among patients admitted to the city's public hospitals plummeted by more than 50 percent last year - thanks to the formation of new emergency "rapid response" medical teams, The Post has learned.

Cardiac arrests outside intensive-care units dropped from an average 11 per month to two per month at Bellevue Hospital last year, according to data from the Health and Hospitals Corp.

At Coney Island Hospital, cardiac arrests fell from an average 13 per month to six.

Rapid-response teams include doctors and nurses specifically assigned to perform roving preventive care on patients throughout the hospital, not just in ICUs.

The patient-safety program will be instituted in the rest of the HHC's 11 hospitals by March of this year, officials said.

"TV medical shows love these 'code blue' episodes where docs rush to bring a patient back from cardiac arrest," said HHC spokeswoman Ana Marengo.

"With the [rapid-response teams], we are bringing the ICU to the patient before their heart goes into full arrest"

Republished with permission of The New York Post.