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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In Reply: Dr Sherner and Dr Reynolds and colleagues allude to limitations of studying outcomes at a single institution. Previous studies may not be generalizable to all hospitals. As described in our article, our hospital is a major tertiary care urban teaching hospital with a full complement of medical and surgical subspecialties. The patient population is ethnically and racially diverse and has a high level of disease acuity (high case-mix index). Our hospital may have features that minimized the potential benefit of its rapid response team, such as a possible ceiling effect on outcomes or limitations in the quality of its rapid response team implementation. However, the lack of benefit of implementation on mortality outcomes at our institution and others should raise questions about broad recommendations for their widespread dissemination.

Sherner suggests that rapid response teams should be assessed by their effect on preventable mortality. Using this outcome rather than . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Paul S. Chan, MD, MSc
pchan@cc-pc.com

John A. Spertus, MD, MPH
Department of Internal Medicine
Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute
Kansas City, Missouri

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