Historically, quality improvement efforts have focused primarily on preventing complications from occurring. In contrast, failure to rescue is an emerging quality metric that follows patients after a complication occurs and describes a system’s ability to prevent subsequent mortality and rescue them from death. Future efforts to implement the rescue framework in thoracic surgery should consider selective care consolidation, standardized pathways for detection of clinical deterioration and subsequent escalation of care, distribution of best practices, and evaluation of patient factors that contribute to mortality.