Rapid Response

Do you mean that you are interested in becoming a STAT or resource nurse? That is who responds to rapid response (or ERT--emergency response team) call at my facility. These nurses are expected to be experts at critical care and patient triage. They also have to be skilled at communication, as sometimes various people involved have differing opinions on what exactly is going on, and how critical the situation is. Generally nurses have at least 3 years of critical care experience prior to joining the STAT team.

I don't--I work on a hem-onc floor. Our patients are sick, but aren't considered progressive care. Our STAT nurses are a godsend though when I'm worried about a patient.

From the conversations I've had with stat nurses I know well, I'd say that pros are a fast paced job (much like ER nursing). I think that they also enjoy using and perfecting their critical thinking skills. They are part of the float pool at my facility, and so make a bit more a hour than nurses who work on a specific floor. They also get more flexibility making their schedule.

Cons would be frequent exposure to conflict, having to argue with doctors frequently, the stress of constantly triaging and evaluating the sickest patients on med-surg/progressive care floors, and deciding which patients get the (always in very short supply) ICU beds. They also respond to all codes, all stoke codes, and all non-patient emergencies that happen outside the ER.

It's not for me. I love developing relationships with my patients. But its great for some people.

OP: You are basically asking, "How do I become an ICU nurse?" I have worked in several facilities and "Rapid Response" RNs are usually ICU. Sometimes I have seen ICU RNs who are specially trained and apart of a team and other times the entire ICU is trained and must rotate the shifts he/she covers as the RRT RN. I have never worked in a facility where the RRT RNs are sitting around in a separate department from an ICU. The one exception you may find are ED RNs responding to RRTs if your facility has outpatient clinics. In fact, I have responded to RRTs as an ED RN that involved visitors to the facility or involved patients of an attached outpatient clinic.

dont know what u mean by your question/topic, but in my hospital (and the previous one that i worked for), RR's nurse is a senior nurse from ICU who responds to all the code blues within the hospital precinct and doesn't have a patient, when everything's calm and quiet they'd just hang around in icu helping out

In our hospital we have a team of nurses who provide a wide range of services including in-house CCT, problem-solving support to the inpatient floors with various issues and tasks, conscious sedations, IVs and lab draws, etc. One of these nurses is always assigned to the RRT role and is part of the code team, the stroke team, and the sepsis team in addition to evaluating floor patients.

In our hospital we have a team of nurses who provide a wide range of services including in-house CCT, problem-solving support to the inpatient floors with various issues and tasks, conscious sedations, IVs and lab draws, etc. One of these nurses is always assigned to the RRT role and is part of the code team, the stroke team, and the sepsis team in addition to evaluating floor patients.

This sounds like the setup my hospital has as well.