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Contacts |
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Clinical Contact
Rosa M. Johnson, ARNP, MN, CPHQ
Director, Medicare Operations, Washington
Qualis Health
206-364-9700, ext. 2142
rosaj@qualishealth.org
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Deploy Rapid Response Teams
...at the first sign
of patient decline.
“...the patient starts to deteriorate. An employee,
usually a nurse knows it, notes begin to enter the chart, raising
alarm,
nobody
comes.
Forty-eight
hours later, there’s a cardiac arrest, and the Code Blue
team comes right away, but it’s too late, the patient’s
dead.”1
Donald Berwick,
President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
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After examining thousands of cases, IHI identified a pattern of
early alarms being ignored leading to unnecessary patient deaths.
The Rapid Response team authorizes any nurse, anybody, any housekeeper
in the hospital to declare a code call on a patient whose heart is
still beating. If they’re worried, you get help right now.
A team flies to the bedside, takes a look at the patient, does a
rapid evaluation, and intercepts what otherwise would have been a
disaster.
Resources to get
you started
Get more at www.ihi.org
- Tools and Resources
- A database of tools submitted, used and
rated by healthcare providers.
- White papers and training in Improvement Models.
- Register for www.ihi.org
Join discussion groups to share with and learn from healthcare
professionals around the world dedicated to improving healthcare
quality.
References
1Berwick, Donald, Presentation to the Association of Health
Care Journalists, AHCJ Sixth National Conference:
A Discussion with Donald Berwick, 4/2/05. Transcript provided
by kaisernetwork.org, a free service of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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