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ISSN 2448-8909 (Print)

2009, Number 1

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Med Crit 2009; 23 (1)

Rapid response team

Carrillo ER, Ramírez RF, Carrillo CJR, Carrillo CLD

Language: Spanish
References: 30
Page: 38-46
PDF size: 92.88 Kb.


ABSTRACT

As health care professionals and institutions strive to improve patient safety, the treatment of deteriorating patients in noncritical care areas of hospitals has come under great scrutiny. As there is evidence that deteriorating patients receive delayed and substandard care, a number of initiatives have been proposed to improve both the detection and treatment of such patients. Hospitals should create systems to prevent patients from deteriorating and to identify and treat them if they do. Implementation of Rapid Response Teams (RRT) programs is one option, but introducing hospitalists or nurse practitioners or increasing nurse staffing may not only identify and treat deteriorating patients earlier but may also prevent such deteriorations to begin with. Rapid response team programs often provide a system for educating caregivers (nurse, physicians, respiratory therapists, and others) in the recognition of the signs and symptoms of physiological instability, developing «Alert Criteria», and activating team of clinicians who come to the patient’s bedside for direct evaluation, treatment, and possibly triage to another setting such as the operating room or an Intensive Care Unit. The hospital wide operational and financial benefits of implementation of an RRT greatly outweigh the challenges of starting up an RRT. Benefits include improved safety of patients, shorter hospitals stays, fewer blue code, fewer transfers to the Intensive Care Unit, increased awareness and identification of alert criteria, decreased mortality and morbidity, increased satisfaction between nurses, physicians, patients and family. Developing a structured RRT for patient’s safety empowers all staff to operate at a higher competence level.


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