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Family-activated rapid response teams

Nurse Leader Weekly, February 15, 2008

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Implementing a rapid response team (RRT) requires an understanding among staff members that putting an RRT into action is best for patient safety. However, introducing family-activated rapid response to a hospital requires a greater social change.

"Healthcare professionals are not very good at giving up control; it's very scary for some people. They have a lot of issues to deal with," says Sharon Garretson, RN, MSN, manager of orthopedic and surgical services at University Hospitals Richmond Medical Center (UHRMC) in Richmond Heights, OH. "We automatically assume when patients enter the hospital that we know more than they do."

The 2008 Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO) National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG) include NPSG #16A, which says that as of January 1, 2009, staff members should be able to call for extra assistance when a patient's condition rapidly deteriorates. One of the implementation expectations says that facilities also need to provide a way for patients and their families to call for assistance if they think it is needed.

Garretson knows from implementing UHRMC's initial RRT that staff members need to see that a new idea works before they get on board. Within the first three weeks, after the first RRT call had come through and the system worked well, staff members started to realize the benefits of the system, she says. Family-activated RRTs should be similar.

"In January 2007, we did research into the opinions of nurses concerning RRTs, and the results were overwhelmingly positive," Garretson says. "They saw it was about the patient and not an insult to them."

Showing staff members that family-activated RRTs make sense can be beneficial as well. "People call an RRT when they're at home and they call 911-no one says to them, 'How do you know your mom's having a stroke?' " Garretson says. "The whole concept of [family-activated] rapid response teams is common sense."

Editor's Note: This excerpt was adapted from the article "Family activation: The next generation of rapid response" featured in the Reading Room on HCPro's new online resource center, www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com!   

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