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To provide quality care, staff and healthcare providers need to possess knowledge of emergency management pro - cesses for patients and visitors. This project found specific emergency management knowledge and attitudes im - proved with staff education and enhanced communication processes.
The ability to activate a rapid response team (RRT) is essential to staff trying to maintain the safety of all individuals in an ambulatory care center. In their meta-analysis, Winters and colleagues (2013) found use of RRTs reduced cardiopulmonary arrests by 33.8% in patients not in an intensive care unit. To provide quality care, however, staff and healthcare providers need to possess knowledge of emergency management processes for patients and visitors. Success of an RRT is tied to the ability to activate the team appropriately by implementing standard operating procedures, streamlined communication, and consistent processes (Peebles, Subbe, Hughes, & Gemmel, 2012; Roberts et al., 2014; Winters et al., 2013).
Project Site and Reason for Change
The project site offers many services, including medical and radiation oncology, radiation treatment, infusion therapy, and multiple surgical services. Recently, the center expanded service lines, programs, staff, and providers. The oncology center extends across three floors of the building.
The project goal was to improve knowledge of and attitudes toward medical emergencies among nursing, business, and advanced practice provider (APP) teams at the project site.
Program
The project involved education of 50 nursing, business, and APP team members on the medical emergency response plan for the center delivered via a computerbased education module. An educational plan was developed to include an education module, fliers to promote the communication plan for RRT activation, process and guidelines posted to the intranet, and an email communication blast. Education was drawn from the center-specific policy for managing medical emergencies drawn from the American Heart Association (2015) protocol. Knowledgeable in the process for RRT activation, center guidelines, institutional resources, and policies, the nurse manager developed the content for the module. The clinical director then reviewed the content to confirm validity and accuracy. The nursing informatics team assisted with online module builds, testing, and uploading to the intranet site.
Module content included descriptions of the RRT plan, team structure, activator and responder roles, RRT team members, RRT guideline, medical algorithm, and process for transferring...