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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

UMC Emphasizes Unique Medical Response Program in Celebration of National Patient Safety Awareness Week

University Medical Center (UMC) is celebrating National Patient Safety Awareness Week from March 5 to 11 by recognizing the success of their Rapid Response Action Team (RRAT) and by conducting a series of activities focusing on staff development and patient education.

Patient Safety Awareness Week is a national education and awareness-building campaign for improving patient safety at the local level. Participating hospitals and health care organizations promote patient safety internally, create activities to educate patients on how to become more involved in their health care and build partnerships with their patient community.

“Safety for our patients and for our staff is always top-of-mind at UMC,” said Kim Voss, R.N., director of performance improvement. “We emphasize safety all-year long, but this week’s activities help departments share ideas, celebrate improvements and create new patient safety programs.”

Voss exemplified this commitment by highlighting the hospital’s unique Rapid Response Action Team (RRAT), which is designed to curtail life-threatening medical catastrophes by efficiently deploying the medical personnel needed in response to a hospital code.

A code is a hospital term to describe the general state of health of a patient in an urgent call to medical personnel without interfering with the patient’s privacy. The RRAT team at UMC is composed of registered nurses, respiratory technicians and other medical personnel.

First introduced in September 2005, UMC’s RRAT program aims at providing adequate patient assessment that will reduce the amount of codes called for the medical/surgical units to displace. This, in turn, maximizes the efficiency of the teams and allows them to better respond to life-threatening situations increasing a positive outcome for the patient and reducing response time.

During the first month of operations, the RRAT team proved to be successful by reducing the amount of codes called by 25 percent and effectively identified the code status. The team was called into action a total of 112 its first four months of operation. Due to the program’s success, the Institute for HealthCare Improvements, which initiated the program nation-wide as part of its 100K Lives campaign, has asked UMC to become a mentor for other hospitals in the valley trying to establish a rapid response team.

“Programs that drive patient safety with tangible results, such as our RRAT program, help achieve the excellence in care that UMC provides to all members of our community,” added Voss.

Some other events to celebrate National Patient Safety Awareness Week include seminars, interactive activities like word search games and puzzles, a poster creation contest and a “safety problem hunt” where participants enter a staged room with a mock patient and are challenged to detect every patient safety and environmental problem.

For more information on UMC’s RRAT program and for activities for patients and families during Patient Safety Awareness Week, please see fact sheets attached to this news release or visit the National Patient Safety Foundation webpage athttp://www.npsf.org/html/psaw.html.

For information on the Institute for HealthCare Improvements and the 100K Lives campaign visit http://www.ihi.org/ihi.

Contact Information:
Cheryl Persinger , Public Relations Manager
(702) 383-2090
Cheryl.Persinger@umcsn.com
University Medical Center
1800 West Charleston Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89102