Cost-benefit analysis of a medical emergency team in a children's hospital.

Medical emergency teams (METs) have been widely implemented in hospitals, with some evidence suggesting that they may be effective at reducing serious clinical deteriorations. This study aimed to create a financial model to determine the potential benefits and costs of operating an MET at a children's hospital. Relying on various derived calculations, the authors estimate that the care of patients who experience a critical deterioration during hospitalization costs nearly $100,000 more following the event compared with other patients who transfer to an intensive care unit. The annual costs of operating an MET range widely, anywhere from $287,000 to $2.3 million, depending on who is staffed and whether the team has concurrent responsibilities or is freestanding. Under a bundled payment system—where a health system is paid a fixed reimbursement for a hospitalization—most MET team configurations would prove cost-effective if they successfully avoid a modest number of critical deteriorations each year. A prior AHRQ WebM&M perspective discusses early lessons of medical emergency teams.