Rapid Medical Response Team Receives Lawrence Patient Safety Award
On December 6 the Roseville Medical Center in the Northern California Region received the 2006 Lawrence Patient Safety Award New Project Category for the Rapid Medical Response Team (RMRT) project. The event took place at the Claremont hotel in Berkeley , CA .
The initial Roseville team was started in 2004 to minimize adverse events towards patients. According to the literature, 4% - 17% of patients experienced adverse events. 70% of those events were found to be preventable.
According to Charles Meek, Roseville Department Manager, there was a 46% reduction of adverse events at the bedside during the team's inception in 2004 through 2005. The program started in a 24-bed med surg unit which had grown to 146 beds, the entire medical surgical bed capacity for Roseville , by Dec 31, 2005.
In July of 2005, the program was rolled out to the remaining KP Northern California facilities, with an aim to implement RMRT in at least one medical/surgical unit in each hospital by the end of 2005. Southern California has begun implementation and, early next year, hospitals throughout the program will be invited to the Garfield Center to work with Roseville staff for a "knowledge transfer" conference.
Barbara Crawford, RN, MS, KPNC Vice President of Quality and Regulatory Services and the project's local sponsor in 2004 says the project's impact has been Program-wide. Every medical surgical Nurse in Northern California has had, or will have, training associated with RMRT. The knowledge transfer that occurs between RMRT and the sometimes less experienced med surg nurse is a significant side benefit to early "rescue" of patients.
The RMRT was part of a larger project in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation known as Transforming Care at the Bedside, sponsored by Marilyn Chow.
- View a related article from the Patient Safety Web site
- View an article about the 100,000 Lives Campaign