My facility is implementing a new policy. When a patient is admitted to the floor we are now to explain to them 211 help. This policy informs patients they can call this rapid response number of 211 if they feel their is a critical change in their condition that is not being met or followed up by staff. This is only supposed to be used if the patient or family feels they are in dire medical jeopardy. I can just imagine all of our detoxers and chronic med seekers calling because they feel their narcotic needs are not being met. Then we will have our real needy, demanding patients calling because their call bell is not being answered in 30 seconds or they do not like their meal tray. I feel this will tie up our ICU nurses which are our rapid response nurses for crazy reasons. Our educator says this system is not abused in other hospitals but I just have a hard time believing that.
When the patient calls this number the nurse will now be held responsible for the reason for the call. This will be another piece of documentation and explaing to do on an admit that will take us away from the bedside. I work on a neuro/ortho floor and we rarely have any dire or life threatening situations (thank God). I can just see this being abused. Does anyone else have a system like? How is it working out or not working out? I think it is going to be interesting as rapid responses are being called all over the place. This is going to be almost comical. I cannot wait to see all of the crazy things people will call about.
We have this in my hospital. I think ours is kind of a combined RRT / Condition H. it can be activated by anyone, including families if they are concerned about health condition or care (which really is about health condition too). I think it is a fantastic system. it gives families peace of mind knowing that they have another avenue to access support / help if the first access isn't sufficient. I (as an RN) have activated the system a couple times when I was very concerned about a deteriorating patient and couldn't get doctor support as fast as I wanted / needed it. I haven't seen it abused at all. You have to present a valid concern when you call to activate the team. The posters are up everywhere and it seems overall to have been an initiative that in my opinion has been successful and has improved patient care.
... the study authors suggest that secondary effects of having rapid response teams may be as important as the primary outcomes they measured. noting that "a sizable number of patients who survived their initial rapid response team intervention subsequently obtained [do not resuscitate] status during their hospital stay," the authors speculate that "rapid response teams may not be decreasing [cardiac arrest] rates as much as catalyzing a compassionate dialogue of end-of-life care among terminally ill patients...
as a member of a regional health systems patient safety committee, we've noted 50 % less codes and improved family satisfaction since implimentation of our patient/family initiated rapid reponse teams.
I'm sorry, but I think that giving a pt's family access to Rapid Response is a bad idea. Assessing the need to pull an ICU nurse away from his/her assignments to respond to a pt on a different floor is a nursing judgement, not a family judgement.
To my knowledge, we haven't had a patient or patient's family activate it. We don't explain how to do it, but we do have a sign inside the door of each room stating how to call a rapid response and why one might do so.
There are signs in our hospital regarding a family/patient's right to call a "rapid response" but I have yet to see it happen. The nurses are pretty much the ones calling the rapid response team if needed.
Meraki
188 Posts
We have this in my hospital. I think ours is kind of a combined RRT / Condition H. it can be activated by anyone, including families if they are concerned about health condition or care (which really is about health condition too). I think it is a fantastic system. it gives families peace of mind knowing that they have another avenue to access support / help if the first access isn't sufficient. I (as an RN) have activated the system a couple times when I was very concerned about a deteriorating patient and couldn't get doctor support as fast as I wanted / needed it. I haven't seen it abused at all. You have to present a valid concern when you call to activate the team. The posters are up everywhere and it seems overall to have been an initiative that in my opinion has been successful and has improved patient care.