Rapid Response Teams

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Specializes in Hospice, Critical Care.

Our hospital has just initiated a Rapid Response Team (sometimes called Rapid Assessement Team). Floor nurses can call for an RRT assessment if they think there is an acute change in their patient. We have 4 protocols to follow: hypotension, hypoglcycemia, oversedation (e.g., pt. just received dilaudid and is no unresponsive), and resp. distress.

The "team" consists of the ICU charge nurse and a respiratory therapist. That's it. Wish we had at least a PA to accompany us. Thus far, just about every RRT that's been called has been ended up transferred into the Unit. I don't think that's the goal but that's what has happened.

Tomorrow is my first day in charge since the RRT went into effect. I'm just hoping I have the tools I need to do what needs to be done. It's particularly busy in ICU itself right now and now we have to run around the hospital too. (I do think an RRT is a good idea, I just wish it were more than just me and a respiratory therapist!)

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Where I am, it is an RN that is assigned that job for the day, they are also an extra set of hands in the unit, as well as the RT, and the ICU resident/medical team that responds.

The charge nurse normally does not respond.

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our team consists of an ICU RN, a Respiratory Therapist and a MD...

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Our team consists of an RN and an RT. IT may or not be the charge nurse, but just like codes, the person who can go, does. We have had great success in the past 6 mos since the RRT has been implemented. Codes are way down. OFten, but not always, the pt is transferred to the unit. This is greatly preferred to a code, both for us and the pt! :)

Although it can be a burden for the nurse who has 1-2 critical patients of her own back in the unit, I think it has been excellent overall.

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https://allnurses.com/forums/f15/rapid-response-team-105513.html?highlight=Rapid+Response+Team

Check out this thread from the CCU forum. Might be helpful. I am on the RRT, and we are a dedicated team, meaning I do not take a patient assignment while on the team, and I cannot be pulled into the census when staffing is short. Our team consists of me (RN), RT, and a 2nd or 3rd year resident. We have been up and running for several months now, and just in our first month we dropped codes on the floor 40%! The floor nurses love us because we are so readily available, and give them non-punitive feedback about their patients.

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I am wandering if anyone is working with a RRT that can be activated by the patient's family in addition to staff. We are looking to start this at my hospital and I am in charge of researching this. We currently have a RRT that can be activated by staff.

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Specializes in Hospice, Critical Care.

RRT by family members! OMG. I can't imagine. Personally, I think we'd be getting paged for ice water and blankets. Just my opinion, of course, but I've seen some of the things visitors think are emergencies. I had one man get belligerent with me because I wouldn't get ice water for his mom while I was attending to a patient with chest pain.

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Our rapid response team is the ACCU charge, a helper nurse, RT and an MD; our criteria is sort of general-resp. distress, over sedation, cardiac issues, but really we support a nurse calling rapid response if she/he has any concern over a pt's status; we've had great results with preventing codes.

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We have had our Urgent Response Team for about 5 months. We utilize an ICU or ER nurse scheduled for URT and a RRT. Our amount of codes has dropped quite a bit. The biggest obstacle we faced was getting the floor nurses to call BEFORE a situation reached critical mass. But they have gotten better about it and we have been successful in teaching some critical thinking skills and improving assessment skills.

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Specializes in Cardiac/Telemetry.

I hope that when I graduate, I will be able to work in the rapid response team. It sounds like it would be a great place or specialty to work in.

Mave.

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I hope that when I graduate, I will be able to work in the rapid response team. It sounds like it would be a great place or specialty to work in.

Mave.

To be a part of a rapid response team you must first have ICU experience. You must be able to quickly assess the patient figure out what is going on and begin to implement the proper interventions quickly and calmly to stabilize the patient. It is not meant for new graduates who need to learn how to fine tune their assessment skills and generally learn how to be a nurse.

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A Rapid Response team will be starting where I work tommorrow, and we wish that there were a md or resident to accompany us. I think that a physician needs to be at the bedside for certain emergency's. Physicians at my hospital are always wanting to treat the patient by phone instead of coming to the bedside where they belong. I know that the nurses are very good at my hospital but, we are concerned that they want us to leave our alreadly critically ill patients and not give us any additional staff. What is the liability issue for the rest of the nurses that are left on the floor who may already be swamped with their own patients?:nurse:

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