Patient Complaint/Failure to Rescue

[Scared54]

I worked as a nurse in Acute Care for 6 years then transferred to Critical Care. My orientation went well with a great Preceptor. A year in a half in, I floundered in a situation where a patient weaned off the ventilator went went into respiratory distress and I did not get her bagged and back to baseline fast enough. She was re-intubated and an incident report was filed. The patient's family also filed a complaint. I accept full responsibility for my actions, but am now questioning my abilities as a critical thinker and as a nurse. Help was available, I did not respond aggressively enough. Feedback on how to handle this situation and prevent another one appreciated.

[Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN]

Learn from your mistake. You accepted responsibility so that is a huge issue with some that you have already done.

Also, many times patients end up re-intubated, regardless of what is or is not done. Don't beat yourself up over it.

[MunoRN, RN]

In general, bagging a patient does not avoid the need for re-intubation, but rather it's just a way to maintain the patient until they can be either re-intubated or put on BiPAP. It's possible the patient should have been bagged while waiting for other interventions that will actually address the problem, but it's pretty unlikely the patient wouldn't have needed either BiPAP or another tube just because you bagged them.

[VANurse2010]

In general, bagging a patient does not avoid the need for re-intubation, but rather it's just a way to maintain the patient until they can be either re-intubated or put on BiPAP. It's possible the patient should have been bagged while waiting for other interventions that will actually address the problem, but it's pretty unlikely the patient wouldn't have needed either BiPAP or another tube just because you bagged them.

Yep, you're not going to bag a patient out of reintubation or BIPAP

[Dranger]

Incident report for what? Oh no you delayed 5 seconds of bagging....

As others said bagging is a stop-gap between non-invasive or invasive mech ventilation.

[FirstLadyRN]

I don't understand. Was the patient desaturated? Wouldn't it show on monitor? Or were there other signs like elevated respirations and shortness of breath?