Hospitals Allow Patients, Families To Activate Rapid Response Teams
About 20 U.S. hospitals are allowing patients and their families to make emergency calls to "rapid response teams," which are designed to identify patients before they "crash, or 'code,' in respiratory or cardiac distress," the Washington Post reports.
The rapid response system was developed as part of a national initiative to reduce preventable deaths in hospitals. Teams comprise nurses, respiratory therapists and physicians, as well as patient advocates and social workers in some cases. Hospital staff typically call for the team, but in some hospitals, patients and their families can "activate the system if they feel a patient is failing or not getting needed medical attention," according to the Post.
The move to allow families to call the teams is based on the belief that family members are very familiar with a patient and often can recognize problems or abnormal behavior before physicians. Kathy Duncan, a faculty expert on rapid response teams at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, said, "Families know these patients better than anybody else," adding, "It's a natural progression of the culture of safety in the hospital. Everybody has a resource to call for help with the patient."
While some hospital staff members initially are concerned that patients and families will call the teams for nonemergencies, hospital administrations have said the teams have been used sparingly, the Post reports. A few studies have shown hospitals with rapid response teams experienced a decline in mortality and codes outside the intensive care unit, but measuring the value of the system is difficult, and it is unclear whether other initiatives contributed to the declines, according to the Post.
Currently, hospitals can decide whether to implement rapid response teams, but the Joint Commission, formerly known as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, could vote in December to make the teams mandatory in all medical centers (Wang, Washington Post, 9/4).
