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Raising Public Awareness Of The Rapid Response Team

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Raising Public Awareness of the Rapid Response Team “Failure to rescue” is becoming increasingly important in the hospital. Rapid response/STAT teams are being put into place to intervene where there is evidence of “failure to rescue” leading to serious adverse events. There are clinical trials showing that patients display a need for a rapid response team sometimes up to four to six hours before an unexpected clinical deterioration requires a traditional code team. Reading many news articles about “failure to rescue” and from my own personal experience in clinical during nursing school, many patients and visitors are unaware that these rapid response teams are part of the hospital and that they have access to them. The intent of my …show more content…

A traditional code teams differs from a rapid response team in a number of ways. A rapid response team assesses a greater quantity of hospitalized patients at an earlier stage of clinical deterioration. This is because their goal is to prevent critical adverse events such as cardiac arrests and unexpected deaths. Consequently, rapid response teams assess patients in whom cardiac, respiratory, or neurologic deterioration develops as opposed to patients who have already experienced a respiratory or cardiac arrest (Jones, DeVita, & Bellomo, 2011). A failure to react promptly or appropriately escalate care in patients with sudden, critical abnormalities in vital signs constitutes a “failure to rescue” and may end in a serious adverse event. There are many causes for an abrupt critical event and for failure to rescue, and they help hospitals understand why these events are astoundingly frequent (Jones, DeVita, & Bellomo, 2011).
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Many of us know the story of 18-month old Josie King as it has been discussed in hospitals, nursing schools, and more. The story has led to important changes in numerous clinical settings regarding receptivity to feedback by family members and others related to potential care issues for patients. Several errors were made in caring for her and her condition began to rapidly deteriorate. Sorrell King’s story has illustrated her sense of frustration and powerlessness as she attempted to alert nurses and doctors

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