Challenges, solutions, benefits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Challenges, solutions, benefits - Essay Example The reason for the many complications in patient’s condition is the inability of staff to recognize significant changes on the physical condition of the patient: breathing, skin colour, etc. In 2004, the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in line with its 100,000 lives campaign, â€Å"encouraged American hospitals to implement rapid response teams (RRTs) (20). The major purpose of RRT is to preclude the possibility of deaths outside the intensive care unit (ICU) by â€Å"providing a resource team that can be called to a patient’s bedside† (21) all the time. As a matter of fact, a patient’s baseline condition starts to aggravate for an average 6.5 hours before a much more critical situation could occur; and what is more interesting is that 70% of these conditions can be prevented. The early detection of the possible signs of attacks by an RRT could do a lot to reduce the number of deaths and the rate of transferring patient to higher levels of care . RRT intervention has contributed to 50% decrease on the number of cardiac arrest cases outside the intensive care unit; the rate of transfer of patient to the ICU was decreased by 58%; and deaths due to operative complications were reduced to 37%. An RRT is an immediate response team that may be composed of the following: (1) physician and nurse; (2) intensivist and respiratory therapist; (3) physician assistant alone; (4) a critical care nurse and respiratory therapist; or (5) a clinical specialist alone.