Strategies for suboptimal care need evaluation.

EDITOR--McQuillan et al say that a medical emergency team and improved medical training may be solutions to the suboptimal care of inpatients.[1] It would have been helpful if the authors had presented the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status on their surgical patients. A recent paper showed that high ASA physical status and surgery performed after hours were risk factors associated with severe postoperative events which required intervention by a medical emergency team (34 cases, incidence of 0.21%).[2] While six patients were admitted to intensive care, the other cases on the ward were treated or reviewed by the team.[3] This suggests that early and …