# Presentation: 721530

## Failure to Rescue:   Preventing Avoidable Deaths with Rapid Rescue Teams 

**Program Director**
**Clinical Process Improvement**
**University HealthSystem Consortium**

**Failure to Rescue:   Preventing Avoidable Deaths with Rapid Rescue Teams**

## University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC)

**UHC**:
- A member-owned alliance of 90 full member and 123 associate members U.S. academic health centers
**Mission**:
- To advance knowledge, foster collaboration, and promote change to help members succeed in their respective markets
**Vision**:
- To be our members’ resource of choice and catalyst for transformational change to achieve clinical and operational excellence

## Quality Measurement and Reporting System (QMRS)

**Sample Academic Medical Center**

## 2004 Failure to Rescue Benchmarking Project 

- To **explore** the clinical and operational **components of care** delivered to patients at risk for complications associated with hospitalization
- To **evaluate **the use of** processes for prevention**, **early recognition** and diagnosis, **rapid intervention** and emergency **rescue**
- To **identify **focal areas where **opportunity** **for improvement** exists
- To **investigate **and** share** **successful strategies** for achieving best practice
- To further **define the common characteristics** of FTR patients to refine the measure

**2004 Failure to Rescue Benchmarking Project **

## Enrollment Criteria

***Inclusion Criteria:***
- Patients discharged prior to 10/1/2003 and after 9/30/2002 identified via the the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators SAS software documentation, version 2.1, rev. 1, with one or more of the following complications of admission:
- _>_ 10 years of age
- < 75 years
***Exclusion Criteria:***
-  Transferred from acute care facility
-  Discharged/Transferred to acute care facility
-  Admitted from long-term facility
-  DNR on admission
-  Additional exclusions specific to each complication group

## Distribution of Complications and Exclusions

- Of the 5,376 complications identified by AHRQ SAS software:
-  2,074 (38.6%)  complications were evaluable for FTR
- 3,302 (61.4%) complications were eliminated for the following reasons:
- 47.2% (1,560) were comorbid condition
- 19.7% (651) did not occur
- 16.4% (540) had complication specific exclusion
- 15.0% (494) had date of diagnosis too early
- 1.7% (57) were in cases with DNR at admission

- Not evaluable

- Not evaluable

- Evaluable Complications

## Failure to Rescue a Serious Threat

- UHC’s Failure to Rescue Benchmarking Project
- Retrospective chart review
- Study designed to examine 50% who died and 50%     who survived
- 3,717 cases reviewed
- 2,125 cases did not meet AHRQ criteria for FTR
- 1,592 cases met AHRQ criteria
- Mortality rate higher in cases that met AHRQ criteria

**Failure    to Rescue**

**mortality rate may be higher than reported**

## Participant Contributions 

- Evaluable Complications

- 41 UHC members submitted patient-level data
- 1,592 evaluable _*cases*_ were enrolled
- 2,074 evaluable _*complications*_ were identified

## Key Performance MeasureAvailability of Signs to Diagnosis Within 1 Day

- Documentation of Diagnosis of Complication Within 1 Day of Availability of Signs*

**Aggregate Performance:**
- 55.1% of all complications were diagnosed within 1 day of availability of signs (1,142/2,074)
- Diagnosis of pneumonia or sepsis occurred within a day of availability of earliest signs in less than 36% of patients with those complications
**Hospital Performance:**
- Mean: 55.9% 	Range: 30.0% — 75.0%
- Median: 57.9% 	Standard Deviation: 9.9

- * See primary sign criteria on following slide

- Performance by Complication Group

## Key Performance Measure Diagnosis to Intervention Within 1 Day 

**Aggregate Performance:**
- 74.1% of all complications received an intervention within 1 day of diagnosis (1,536/2,074)
- Interventions for sepsis and pneumonia occurred within 1 day of diagnosis more commonly than for any of the other complications
-  **Hospital Performance:**
- Mean: 74.0% 	   Range: 52.0% — 93.8%
- Median:  74.1%   Standard Deviation: 11.5

- Intervention Within 1 Day of Diagnosis for All Complications

- * See primary intervention criteria on following slide

- Performance by Complication Group

## Key Performance Measure Availability of Signs to Intervention Within 1 Day

**Aggregate Performance:**
- 41.5% of all complications received an intervention within 1 day of availability of signs (860/2,074)
- Less than 1/3 of the patients with Pneumonia or Sepsis and less than 1/2 of the patients with ARF, GIH, or DVT/PE received an intervention within 1 day of availability of signs
**Hospital Performance:**
- Mean: 42.0% 	   Range: 12.0% — 66.7%
- Median:  42.9%   Standard Deviation: 12.1

- Intervention Within 1 Day of Earliest Sign for All Complications

- Performance by Complication Group

## Some “Best Practices” that Make a Difference

- Early warning signs                                    (physiologic instability criteria)
- SBAR communication model                          (situation, baseline, assessment, recommendation)
- Rapid escalation of communication up chain of command
- Rapid response teams

## UHC Commit to ACTion Series

- Accelerated** **performance improvement through a highly structured change implementation model
- UHC staff provide one-on-one and group facilitation with direction from clinical experts
- 10 to 20 work teams commit to collaborate in the interactive and rigorous 14-week project cycle
- Customized project management tools: Charters, Best Practice Detail Forms, Gap Analyses and Implementation** **Plan
- Report out on individual and aggregate goal achievement and outcomes at end of collaborative and again at 6 months

***A****ccelerate  ****  ****C****ollaborate  ****  ****T****ransform*

## Participants

- 6 had RRT teams in place prior to collaborative
- 12 implemented adult RRTs during collaborative
- 1 implemented both adult and pediatric RRT
- 2 implemented early warning trigger tools/SBAR only
- Median hospital size: 592 licensed beds (range: 224-877)
- Collaborative vs. randomized trial
-     (i.e. They wanted to implement RRT)

**Participants**

## Baseline and Outcome Measures

-  Total cardiopulmonary arrests (code blues)*
-  Code blues outside the ICU
-  Survival rate of code blues outside the ICU
-  Mortality rate (unplanned deaths**)
-  Unplanned admissions to ICU

- *exclude code blues in ED or on day of admission
- **exclude patients with DNR within 24 hour of admission, deaths in ED or stillbirths

## Descriptive Measures

- # of RRT calls
- Average time from call to arrival
- Common presenting early warning signs
- Outcome of RRT call
- Move to ICU or stay on floor?
- Progress to code blue?
- Survived to discharge?
- Staff/patient satisfaction

## RRT Models Implemented

- RRT teams structures
- MD/ICU RN/RT (7)
- ICU RN/RT (9)
- ICU RN/RT first responder, with MD resource available if needed (3)
- All except 1 used existing staff; 1 site added a nurse to the MICU staff
- Equipment
- Range from basic equipment to Crash Cart
- Digital pagers, dedicated phone lines, cell phones/“walkie-talkies”

## Collaborative Learning

- Common struggles
- Without executive leadership support, a nearly impossible task
- Lack of rapid escalation policy or just lack of adherence to already established policy for communication up the chain of command
- RN discomfort in initiating escalation up chain of command
- Nursing staff reluctance to call RRT
- RRT MD resistance to intervening on other MD’s patient
- Egos...egos....egos....egos!

## Creative ideas
“Outreach Teams” rounds on patients transferred from ICU
RRT simulator training
Mock RRT calls (“poor man’s simulator”)
Training videos
Annual competency training for RNs on early warning signs
Rewards for staff who call RRT

“It’s not about you...it’s about the patient!”

- “Outreach Teams” rounds on patients transferred from ICU
- RRT simulator training
- Mock RRT calls (“poor man’s simulator”)
- Training videos
- Annual competency training for RNs on early warning signs
- Rewards for staff who call RRT
- “It’s not about you...it’s about the patient!”

**Collaborative Sharing**

## Timeline of Activities

| First week of July | First Collaborative Conference |
| --- | --- |
| By end of July | Gaps / Implementation plans ready |
| August | Implementation initiation |
| September  | RRTs “go live” on pilot units |
| September forward | Monitoring and measuring |
| October/November | Analysis/Evaluation/Adjustments |
| December | Summary report of initial experience  |
| March 2006 | Report project outcomes  |

**Timeline of Activities**

## Questions

**Questions**
- Joanne Cuny
- Program Director, CPI
- University HealthSystem Consortium
- 2001 Spring Road, Suite 700
- Oak Brook. IL 60523-1890
- Cuny@uhc.edu