Background
Although health-care workers are trained to provide basic, intermediate, or advanced life support from a technical perspective, working as a team is a more complex process in acute situations. Responding to the emergency buzzer from the ward staff, and before the medical emergency arrival, could be sometimes chaotic. This may result in deficient initial management or missing basic measures.
Context
The “ABC Team” is a project, aimed to enhance the health care providers' skills in dealing with emergency situations, within the surgical ward, in an organized manner.
Innovation
Guidance for the staff was created to identify an exact job for every health care provider in the shift by assigning one job/person. Over a period of 5 months, individual training was given to the ward staff. Roles are assigned in the shift handover and A, B, C, D cards (to be attached to the ID) were printed with the information needed for a quick response. Simulation training sessions were organized before launching the project.
Implications
Streamline patient care significantly improved and ABCD assessment time is broken down to half. Pre and post project surveys showed approximately 80% of staff are now satisfied, confident and clear with their role in the emergency event.
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