Integration of a Difficult Airway Response Team into a Hospital Emergency Response System

Hospital-wide emergency response teams have been an area of development for several decades. Highly specialized to address emergent needs, they mimic the cardiac-pulmonary arrest teams established at hospitals nationwide, such as heart attack, brain attack, medical emergency, rapid response, and difficult airway response teams (DART). The DART at Johns Hopkins Hospital is a collaboration of the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, General Surgery, and Emergency Medicine departments. This successful model may be used by other hospitals to establish improved and comprehensive care of the difficult airway patient.