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Hospitals let families launch rapid response teams
Quality Improvement Monitor, September 7, 2007
Some hospitals now permit patients and families to launch a rapid response team (RRT) if they feel a patient is deteriorating or not getting needed medical attention, according to the Washington Post.
"Families know these patients better than anybody else," Kathy Duncan, a faculty expert on RRTs at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, told the Post. "It's a natural progression of the culture of safety in the hospital. Everybody has a resource to call for help with the patient."
The Joint Commission's new National Patient Safety Goal #16 requires hospitals to respond quickly when a patient's condition is worsening. It also requires hospitals to pick an effective method that allows healthcare workers to ask for assistance from specially trained clinicians when a patient's condition appears to be deteriorating.
About 20 hospitals allow patients to call an RRT including St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson and Franklin Square Hospital Center in Baltimore. The Greater Baltimore Medical Center began its program, called Code Help, in July, and Johns Hopkins Hospital is planning to test a patient-activated system on its neuroscience unit this fall.
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