Condition H

Nurses General Nursing

Published

good day everyone - happy 4th :)

i had a question i wanted to put out there for opinions.

do any of the organizations you work for have a "condition h" procedure in place. for those of you who are unfamiliar with it (i was until very recently) i've pasted information below with the source link. if your hospital does have this procedure, how has it worked? is it effective? what are your opinions in general, even if your hospital does not have this in place. i look forward to the discussion. thanks :)

https://www.patientsafetygroup.org/uploads/projects/162/wallsigndraft2.doc

the story.

josie king was an 18 month little girl who died because of hospital errors in one of the best hospitals in our country. through the creation of a patient safety program, the king family's hope is to help prevent this from ever happening to another patient.

the josie king call "condition h" has been created here at upmc shadyside out of our desire to provide our patients and families an avenue to call for immediate help when they feel it is needed. josie's mother, sorrel king, has worked with upmc shadyside to design condition h. we are dedicated to making the hospital the safest place possible for patient care to happen.

condition h -- what does the h stand for? help -- "condition help" patients and families can call for help by initiating a "rapid response team". a rapid response team is made up of designated members of the hospital's healthcare team, including at least a doctor and nurse, who come to the patient's bedside in an emergency and manage the situation, much like an ambulance team does in the community.

the reasons for the condition h can be:

  • a report from a family member or visitor to a healthcare provider (i.e. nurses, physicians) of a serious noted change in the patient's condition that is not being addressed
  • an emergency situation where a noted change in the patient's condition is not being recognized by the caregiver or does not receive the attention deemed appropriate by the family.
  • if after speaking with a member of the healthcare team, confusion or conflict of what needs to be done for the patient is evident.

who will respond to a condition h? an internal medicine physician or nurse practitioner, the administrative nursing coordinator/supervisor. a floor nurse, and a patient relations coordinator, when in house.

we hope that you never need to call a condition h; however, this valuable resource for patients and families is another way that upmc shadyside hospital is partnering with patients and families to provide the highest quality and safestcare possible.

Specializes in >30 yrs CVICU/Critical Care.

Well, here we are in October of 2008 and our Ohio hospital is about to trial this program on a 35 bed medical unit. Our RRT team must now respond to these calls, as well as true Rapid Responses called by hospital staff, Dr. Stats and Code Blues, and also maintain a full assignment in our own unit. The reason I mentioned the date is that I am curious to find new data on number and types of calls, and times they were called. The initial data seemed to be more customer related issues that did NOT require an critical care team to handle the problem to the patient's or family's satisfaction. Does anybody who works at UPMC have any new data or opinions on the condition H calls? I'd really appreciate any input!

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