Mercy
Establishes Rapid Response Team
Initiative Mirrors Research-Proven Improvement of Patient Safety
Mercy Medical Center—Sioux City will initiate use of a Rapid
Response Team this Thursday, Sept. 1, as part of the hospital’s
ongoing efforts to continually improve quality of care and patient
safety.
A Rapid Response Team is a special patient care team that can be
called into action to assess a hospitalized patient who has had
a significant change in clinical condition while on a non-ICU medical
or surgical floor in the hospital.
“The team can be called by the floor nurse or the attending
physician,” explains Diane Prieksat, Mercy’s Quality
Services Director. “The goal is to intervene as soon as possible
when a patient becomes unstable in order to avoid cardiac or pulmonary
arrest.”
“Several national studies indicate that patients often exhibit
signs and symptoms of physiological instability for some period
of time prior to cardiac arrest. Our Rapid Response Team –
which will be comprised of a Mercy Air Care (MAC) flight nurse,
an ICU nurse, a respiratory therapist and a laboratory medical technologist
– will take action whenever a patient first starts to show
any of those signs or symptoms that suggest his or her condition
is deteriorating,” Prieksat adds.
Once they are at the patient’s bedside, team members will
use specially established protocols to start evaluating and stabilizing
the patient while the attending physician is notified. The attending
physician then directs any additional medical care required.
Hospital leaders and physicians at Mercy chose to establish a Rapid
Response Team after evaluating recommendations made in the Institute
for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) Saving 100,000 Lives campaign.
Announced at a nationwide conference in December 2004, the campaign
is based on six evidence-based pillars that have been shown to decrease
mortality in hospitals throughout the country.
The first four pillars related to acute heart attack care, ventilator
use, central line use, and the safeguards against surgical site
infection were already in place at Mercy prior to the IHI’s
recommendations and have been effective in promoting a high level
of quality and patient safety at Sioux City’s busiest hospital.
The fifth pillar, a medication reconciliation program to ensure
the accuracy of medication when patients change location, will be
fully implemented by the hospital in the near future.
The final pillar recommended by the IHI – implementation of
a Rapid Response Team – is being put into place through the
collaborative efforts of a multidisciplinary hospital and medical
staff planning team led by Dr. Ross Bacon, medical director of Performance
Improvement at Mercy.
“Because of the continuing commitment of Mercy Medical Center
and its medical staff to providing the highest level of quality
care, clinical outcomes for patients at Mercy are exemplary and
much better than many national benchmarks,” says Dr. Larry
Sellers, chief medical officer. “However, we are committed
to continually improving these outcomes and as such, endorse the
recommendation made by the IHI.”
Nationwide, Rapid Response Teams have led to 50% reductions in cardiac
arrests outside of the ICU. Post-operative emergency transfers to
the ICU have been reduced by 58% overall in hospitals with Rapid
Response Teams. The decrease in a patient’s length of stay
in the hospital or ICU has been even more dramatic.
Mercy Medical Center’s patient safety record is among the
best in the nation, according to a May 2005 study issued by HealthGrades,
an organization that evaluates hospital quality for consumers, corporations,
hospitals and health plans.
The study of 37 million patient records from 4,200 hospitals over
the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 also identifies Mercy Medical Center—Sioux
City as a recipient of the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award
for Excellence in Patient Safety™.
This is the second year in a row that Mercy has received the prestigious
national honor, which ranks the regional medical center in the top
3% of the nation’s hospitals for overall patient safety.
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