Critical Review and Critique on Rapid Response Team Policies for Acute Essay

Critical Review and Critique on Rapid Response Team Policies for Acute Patients in Riyadh Military Hospital and the UK - Essay Example Moreover, in an article published back in 2007 entitled â€Å"Safer Care for the Acutely Ill Patient†, the National Patient Safety Agency (2007) reported that 576 out of 1,804 hospital deaths were due to diagnostic errors, unrecognized patient deterioration left untreated and problems with resuscitation after a sudden cardiac arrest. It is for this reason that many countries have come up with the idea of forming Rapid Response Teams (RRT) in hospitals to address acute condition cases (Berwick et al., 2006). II. Aim Considering the average waiting time before each patient receives health care intervention, this paper will also focus on discussing rapid response for suddenly ill patients strategies used in the United Kingdom (UK) and Riyadh Military Hospital (RMH) to ensure that its health care professionals are able to deliver quality care and treatment to each patient on a timely basis. III. Critical Review and Critique on Rapid Response Team Policies for Acute Patients in Riy adh Military Hospital and the UK To enable readers to gain better understanding concerning the effectiveness and differences between the ICU RRT in Riyadh Military hospital and NHS hospitals in the UK, this report will first discuss the main purpose of RRTs. Rapid response teams in United Kingdom also referred to as medical emergency teams are multidisciplinary teams that consist of satisfactorily trained clinical personnel. In Riyadh Military hospital, the rapid response team’s core obligation is to examine and evaluate patients who portray symptoms of medical deterioration outside the intensive care unit (Winters, Pham and Pronovost, 2006, p.1647; Nakagawa, 2007, p. 1371; Addington-Hall and McCarthy, 2005, p. 295). Such a team provides early rescue to patients who are in critical health condition in hospital settings. The first team of this kind was created in 1995 as an experiment team in Riyadh Military Hospital before spreading to other hospitals in United Kingdom. The t eam served as a proactive mechanism for reducing unexpected death incidences in hospitals. The core reasons for the introduction of rapid response teams in health care in United Kingdom were to increase patients’ safety and to reduce the rate of inpatients’ deaths in hospitals. InRiyadh Military Hospital, rapid response teams work hand in hand with primary physicians and bedside nurses to resuscitate patients in acute need of medical attention (Sebat, Musthafa and Johnson, 2007, p. 2575). a. Main Purpose of Rapid Response Teams A RRT is a medical emergency team in the intensive care unit that is responsible for assessing and giving initial treatment to deteriorating non-critical care patients (Chan et al., 2008). The purpose of a Rapid Response Team (RRT) is to quickly extract the right cause from the situation of any acute condition. In any case, where the team takes too much time to do this, then their main purpose is unaccomplished (Adams and Failano, 2011). In the UK, the main purpose of Rapid Response to Acute Illness (RRAI) is â€Å"to support clinical teams in the reduction of harm and mortality associated with the acutely deteriorating patient† (1000 Lives, n.d). The policies for the RRT in United Kingdom have recently been addressed by the medical services. It has been suggested in the main protocol of the program that the response team will be selected based on certification. This is similar to the criteria of UK RRTs. The only difference is that the