Why Have a Rapid Response System? Cold with Fear: The Patient and Family Experience of Failure to Rescue.- Rapid Response Systems History and Terminology.- RRS's General Principles.- Measuring Safety.- Medical Trainees and Patient Safety.- RRS and the Culture of Safety.- Creating Process and Policy Change in Health Care.- The Assessment and Interpretation of Vital Signs.- Multiple Parameter Track and Trigger Systems.- Causes of Failure-To-Rescue.- Dying Safely.- Rapid Response Systems: A Brief Review of the Evidence.- Making the Business Case for a Rapid Response System.- Hospital size and Location and Feasibility of the Rapid Response System.- Barriers to the Implementation of RRS.- An Overview of the Afferent Limb.- The Impact of Delayed Rapid Response System Activation.- Nurse-Led Rapid Response Teams.- MET: Physician - led RRTs.- Pediatric RRSs.- Rapid Response Systems and the Septic Patient.- Other Efferent Limb Teams: Crises that Require Specialized Resources.- Crisis Teams for Obstetric Patients.- Personnel Resources for Responding Teams.- Equipment, Medications, and Supplies for a Rapid Response Team.- Governance of the Rapid Response System.- The Second Victim.- Rapid Response Teams in Teaching Hospitals.- The Nurse's View of RRS.- Opportunities for Resident Training with Rapid Response Systems.- Optimizing RRSs Through Simulation.- Evaluating Effectiveness of Complex System Interventions.- Rapid Response Systems: Education for Ward Staff Caring for At-Risk and Deteriorating Patients.- Setting up a Standardized Process and Outcome Assessment Tool.- The Impact of Rapid Response Systems on Not For Resuscitation (NFR) Orders.