Patient safety has become indispensable for the health system. Therefore, initiatives have been implemented over the years to reduce adverse events. The performance of the Rapid Response Team (RRT) has been consolidated as a strategy to provide care to patients who get in critical conditions at the general hospital admission unit. The service is constituted by a multiprofessional team with an approach in the intensive treatment of patients with signs of acute clinical deterioration in the inpatient unit, through codes established for its activation, in order to reduce the probability of worsening of the clinical condition or imminent death risk of the patient during the hospitalization period. The study aims to characterize the critical requirements in emergency care provided by the RRT at a public hospital in the state of Paraná and a philanthropic hospital in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. This is a descriptive, exploratory study with a qualitative approach, adopting the Critical Incident Technique to guide the methodological procedures, performed with 62 health professionals, being 19 physicians, 20 physiotherapists and 23 nurses. The results were grouped into 89 critical incidents extracted from the interviews. Data analysis consisted of the identification and grouping of 220 behaviors and 130 consequences. Based on the situations, behaviors and consequences identified, there is a need to improve the afferent pathway of RRT (recognition of clinical deterioration and activation of the RRT in the unit), the qualification of the professionals of the inpatient units to perform the necessary initial technical skills in the emergency response until the arrival of the RRT, the failure in the interaction among the different professionals during blue-code care with negative effects for the systematization of emergency care to revert the patients' CPA and the negative feelings and emotions generated in the professionals as impediments to code-blue emergency care. Regarding the positive highlights from the situations, behaviors and consequences identified, the arrival time of the RRT in the unit to perform the emergency care, the systematization of the cardiopulmonary resuscitation service performed by the multiprofessional team, the restoration of the patient's vital functions after the care and transfer of the patient after the end of the care from the inpatient unit to an intensive care environment. As the main suggestions to the RRT, the interviewees pointed out the importance of emergency care training for the professionals of the inpatient units, the need to keep the professionals working exclusively in the RRT, the appropriate number of professionals in the room during emergency care and the importance of registering the patient's decision not to reanimate in the patient file in view of palliative care. The significant frequency of positive over negative results was highlighted, which permeated the situations, behaviors and consequences deriving from the interviews. It is inferred that, even though these professionals encountered difficulties during the visits to patients who became critical in the wards, the positive reports predominated in the various categories that legitimized the importance of implementing this service, as a contribution to the quality and safety of hospitalized patients