To explore the effective ability and strategy of improving in-hospital emergency in large general hospitals through investigating and analyzing the epidemiological characteristics and outcomes of patients treated by rapid response team (RRT) in the Fourth People's Hospital of Shenyang. The clinical data of 145 patients treated by RRT in the Fourth People's Hospital of Shenyang from April 1st to June 30th in 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. The clinical data including gender, age, RRT response time, disease type, direct cause of RRT initiation, the incidence of cardiac arrest, intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate and outcome were statistically analyzed. The correlation between indicators was analyzed by Pearson correlation. Pareto diagram was used to analyze the direct cause of RRT initiation. A total of 145 patients were treated by RRT within 3 months. The ratio of male (n = 85) to female (n = 60) was 1.42:1. The age of patients treated by RRT was (72.83±14.84) years old, and the response time was (3.27±1.42) minutes. The incidence of cardiac arrest was 23.4% (34/145), and the ICU admission rate was 29.7% (43/145). The hospital mortality was 40.0% (58/145), and the rescue success rate was 60.0% (87/145). Correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the incidence of cardiac arrest and hospital mortality (r = 0.545, P < 0.01). According to the disease type of patients treated by RRT analysis, respiratory system diseases (n = 44, 30.3%) accounted for the most, followed by circulatory system diseases (n = 43, 29.7%), nervous system diseases (n = 25, 17.2%), digestive system diseases (n = 19, 13.1%), trauma (n = 5, 3.4%), endocrine system diseases (n = 3, 2.1%), urinary system diseases (n = 2, 1.4%) and others (n = 4, 2.8%). Further analysis showed that patients aged between 85 years old and 94 years old were prone to the respiratory system diseases, accounting for 48.5% (16/33) of the population in this age group, while the cardiovascular system diseases were the most common in patients older than 55 years old, accounting for 31.0% (40/129) of the population in this age group. Pareto diagram showed that the percentages of direct causes of RRT initiation ranked from high to low, the cumulative percentage of pneumonia (n = 30, 20.7%), acute myocardial infarction (n = 26, 17.9%), stroke (n = 20, 13.8%), septic shock (n = 14, 9.7%), heart failure (n = 10, 6.9%), respiratory and cardiac arrest (n = 9, 6.2%), and gastrointestinal bleeding (n = 7, 4.8%), which were the main direct causes of RRT initiation with a total of 80%. Respiratory system and circulatory system diseases are the main causes for RRT treatment in first-aid patients in the Fourth People's Hospital of Shenyang. The hospital mortality significantly increases once patients suffered cardiac arrest. The RRT can provide effective intervention earlier and faster, and establish a complete RRT emergency strategy, which is helpful to improve the in-hospital emergency ability in large general hospitals.