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New NPSG calls for rapid response to patients' deteriorating conditions

Quality Improvement Monitor, August 24, 2007

Kathy Duncan, RN, a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) 5 Million Lives Campaign, has crisscrossed the country teaching scores of hospitals how to set up rapid response teams.

But even Duncan says that hospitals wishing to comply with The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) #16and Requirement 16A don't have to follow the IHI's model to a tee.

"It really is about a rapid response system in which hospitals identify patients who are deteriorating and do something about it," says Duncan. "It doesn't necessarily have to be a rapid response team. Some of the superstars across the country actually are in critical access hospitals, or really, really small hospitals, so that the only other nurse in the building is the rapid response system."

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