ObjectiveTo explore the causes of failure to activate the rapid response system (RRS). The organisation has a recognised incidence of staff failing to act when confronted with a deteriorating patient and leading to adverse outcomes.DesignA multi-method study using the following: a point prevalence survey to determine the incidence of abnormal simple bedside observations and activation of the rapid response team by clinical staff; a prospective audit of all patients experiencing a cardiac arrest, unplanned intensive care unit admission or death over an 8-week period; structured interviews of staff to explore cognitive and sociocultural barriers to activating the RRS.SettingSouthern Health is a comprehensive healthcare network with 570 adult in-patient beds across four metropolitan teaching hospitals in the south-eastern sector of Melbourne.MeasurementsFrequency of physiological instability and outcomes within the in-patient hospital population. Qualitative data from staff interviews were thematically coded.ResultsThe incidence of physiological instability in the acute adult population was 4.04%. Nearly half of these patients (42%) did not receive an appropriate clinical response from the staff, despite most (69.2%) recognising their patient met physiological criteria for activating the RRS, and being ‘quite’, or ‘very’ concerned about their patient (75.8%). Structured interviews with 91 staff members identified predominantly sociocultural reasons for failure to activate the RRS.ConclusionsDespite an organisational commitment to the RRS, clinical staff act on local cultural rules within the clinical environment that are usually not explicit. Better understanding of these informal rules may lead to more appropriate activation of the RRS.

The rapid response system (RRS) is a patient safety initiative instituted to enable healthcare professionals to promptly access help when a patient's status deteriorates. Despite patients meeting the criteria, up to one-third of the RRS cases that should be activated are not called, constituting a "missed RRS call". Using a case study approach, 10 focus groups of senior and junior nurses and physicians across four hospitals in Australia were conducted to gain greater insight into the social, professional and cultural factors that mediate the usage of the RRS. Participants' experiences with the RRS were explored from an interprofessional and collective competence perspective. Health professionals' reasons for not activating the RRS included: distinct intraprofessional clinical decision-making pathways; a highly hierarchical pathway in nursing, and a more autonomous pathway in medicine; and interprofessional communication barriers between nursing and medicine when deciding to make and actually making a RRS call. Participants also characterized the RRS as a work-around tool that is utilized when health professionals encounter problematic interprofessional communication. The results can be conceptualized as a form of collective incompetence that have important implications for the design and implementation of interprofessional patient safety initiatives, such as the RRS.

BackgroundThe rapid response system (RRS) is a process of accessing help for health professionals when a patient under their care becomes severely ill. Recent studies and meta-analyses show a reduction in cardiac arrests by a one-third in hospitals that have introduced a rapid response team, although the effect on overall hospital mortality is less clear. It has been suggested that the difficulty in establishing the benefit of the RRS has been due to implementation difficulties and a reluctance of clinical staff to call for additional help. This assertion is supported by the observation that patients continue to have poor outcomes in our institution despite an established RRS being available. In many of these cases, the patient is often unstable for many hours or days without help being sought. These poor outcomes are often discovered in an ad hoc fashion, and the real numbers of patients who may benefit from the RRS is currently unknown. This study has been designed to answer three key questions to improve the RRS: estimate the scope of the problem in terms of numbers of patients requiring activation of the RRS; determine cognitive and socio-cultural barriers to calling the Rapid Response Team; and design and implement solutions to address the effectiveness of the RRS.MethodsThe extent of the problem will be addressed by establishing the incidence of patients who meet abnormal physiological criteria, as determined from a point prevalence investigation conducted across four hospitals. Follow-up review will determine if these patients subsequently require intensive care unit or critical care intervention. This study will be grounded in both cognitive and socio-cultural theoretical frameworks. The cognitive model of situation awareness will be used to determine psychological barriers to RRS activation, and socio-cultural models of interprofessional practice will be triangulated to inform further investigation. A multi-modal approach will be taken using reviews of clinical notes, structured interviews, and focus groups. Interventions will be designed using a human factors analysis approach. Ongoing surveillance of adverse outcomes and surveys of the safety climate in the clinical areas piloting the interventions will occur before and after implementation.

There is an increasing awareness of the tragic consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among first responders in Canada. There is also an increasing awareness of the lack of understanding about the economic and social costs of PTSD in Canada. This article aims to briefly review the current evidence on the prevalence rates of PTSD, the economic costs associated with PTSD, and the costs and efficacy of various treatment strategies, to provide a framework for future research on the economic analysis of PTSD. Estimates suggest that as many as 2.5 million adult Canadians and 70,000 Canadian first responders have suffered from PTSD in their lifetimes. While we could not find any evidence on the economic cost of PTSD specifically, a recent estimate suggests that mental illness in the Canadian labour force results in productivity losses of $21 billion each year. Research from Australia suggests that expanded mental health care may improve the benefits of treatment over traditional care, and more cost-effectively. Given the methodological challenges in the existing studies and the paucity of evidence on Canada, more Canadian studies on prevalence, on the economic and social costs of PTSD, and on the costs and effectiveness of various treatment options are encouraged.

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