"No one knows their loved ones better than you," said Maryann Reese, chief
operating officer at Mercy Medical Center.

St. Luke's and Saint Alphonsus regional medical centers also offer rapid
response teams that are alerted by nurses, but only Mercy's allows patients
and families to raise the alarm, officials said.

Mercy encourages families to observe changes in pulse, blood pressure,
breathing, urine output and coherence that could indicate a potential
cardiac or respiratory arrest, surgical infection or medication issue.

"Even just a sense that the patient doesn't seem right merits a
rapid-response call" Reese said.

In 2006, 26 calls for Mercy's Rapid Response Team were logged. The family
component was added in the late 2006. The team has gotten 31 calls so far
this year.

In the first 18 months of the quick-response program, Mercy noted a 38
percent decrease in mortality rates: 45 lives were saved. And the number of
cardiac or respiratory arrests outside the intensive care unit went down by
50 percent. Mercy officials said Saint Al's and St. Luke's have seen similar
results, hospital spokeswoman said.

Rapid-Response teams are a relatively new trend nationwide, and hospitals
including St. Luke's are still developing protocols for a family-activated
component. Currently fewer than two dozen hospitals have such protocols.

Mercy officials believe including families and patients in the process will
decrease deaths and cardiac arrests further.

"We see this as a very important safety net and patient empowerment
strategy" Reese said.

She should know:

Reese broke her neck and back when she fell from a horse a few years ago and
was taken to a hospital in a different area. When she couldn't get anyone in
the hospital to respond to her calls, she phoned her doctor, who stopped by
and found she had an overdose of morphine.

"I thought I was dying," Reese said. "If I had access to something like
this, it would have been marvelous."

A rapid response team was created at Mercy Medical about two years ago, and
at St. Luke's and Saint Alphonsus about a year ago.

The Mercy team includes a respiratory therapist, critical care nurse, and
cardiac specialist who can be called if nurses, patients or family members
sense that something isn't right. On the advice of the team members, staff
can begin treatments or move the patient to the intensive care unit.

"The whole idea of rapid response is to get another set of eyes to see if
there is a problem," said Deanna Graham, director of performance
improvement.

Graham said staff experienced a rapid response call a couple of weeks ago in
which the patient's mental state was changing. They were able to get the
patient to the ICU before the patient went into cardiac arrest.

"Time is muscle." Reese said. "If you can intervene before they get that
point, you have a greater chance of the surviving."