Page 26 - Delaware Medical Journal - January/February 2020
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QUALITY IMPROVEMENT ABSTRACTS
‘Who Ya Gonna Call?’
LaRay A. Fox, MEd, CNMT
: Vanessa Buonopane, PsyD; Navneet Mann, MS, OMS-3, PCOM; Elizabeth McCarthy, MD, PGY-3, General Surgery; Anna Pham, MD, PGY-2, Family Medicine; Charles Williston, BSN, RNIII, CEN
Background: The Rapid Response Team (RRT) at ChristianaCare (CCHS) is a valued group composed of MICU nurses, respiratory therapists, and residents that is used to detect and care for declining patients within the hospital. Appropriate utilization of this team is needed to assure patient care and allocation of hospital resources. It is essential to involve
each patient’s primary provider when considering activating the RRT system to help provide the best continuity of care for the patient.
Objective: Our project’s goal was to improve the quality and continuity of patient care by increasing communication between the primary team and nurses PRIOR to calling RRTs by 25% within two weeks at Christiana hospital. To do this, we implemented a new question into the RRT Web Paging form, asking those Team had been contacted.
Methods: Our study utilized the CCHS MERC data and RRT/Code Vocera Pager at Christiana Hospital to look into all RRTs called at Christiana Hospital between 3/4/19 and 3/30/19.
Results: Our results are up for interpretation; however, we were able to clearly see that nursing contacted the primary team 76.6% of the time post-
the time pre-intervention. Our results also show that CCHS continues to have institution compared to the IHI national average.
Conclusion: The reason CCHS has such a high RRT prevalence is still unknown. RRTs are always called in the patient’s best interest; however, inappropriate
use of the RRT resources at times is an ongoing concern. Further research is needed looking into what nursing and provider education about the RRT system is at CCHS, why more RRTs are called on non-medicine primary patients, and what type of communication is used in both nursing and provider patient handoffs at change of shifts.
Accepted/Prior Presentations: Conference: ACT Winter 2019 Final Presentation and Graduation Conference Date: April 3, 2019
CONTRIBUTORS
■ Anthony Tramontozzi, DO is a third-year Internal Medicine resident at ChristianaCare who plans on pursuing a career as both a hospitalist and primary care physician. A third-generation physician, he is originally from Norwich, CT and studied at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.
■ Vanessa Buonopane, PsyD is a Clinical Psychology post-doctoral fellow in the Northern Virginia area. She was formerly a Psychology resident at ChristianaCare.
■ Navneet Mann MS, OM5-3, PCOM is a fourth-year medical student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. As a Delaware native, she is also a DIMER branch campus student at ChristianaCare.
■ Elizabeth McCarthy, MD is a fourth-year surgical resident at ChristianaCare with plans to go into minimally invasive bariatric and advanced GI surgery. She is originally from Media, PA and studied at Jefferson Medical College.
■ Anna Pham, MD attended the University
of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore where, within the Primary Care track, she developed her passion for family medicine
and chose to pursue her residency training at ChristianaCare. At Christiana, her continuity clinic is at Westside Health, a federally qualified health center, which has allowed her to care for all members of the community. Her specific interest within primary care is women’s health.
■ Charles Williston, BSN, RNIII, CEN has been employed as a registered nurse at ChristianaCare for 16 years in the Wilmington Emergency Department. He is a mentor and leader and has received his certification in Emergency Nursing. Williston has been in the U.S. Air Force for 28 years and has served as a flight nurse with the 142 AES Delaware Air National Guard for the past 15 years.
A Resident-Run Quality Improve- ment Initiative to Optimize the Management of COPD Patients by Increasing the Rate of Spirometry Completion
Matthew McCarter, DO; Zehra Hussain, MD
Olivia Gad, DO; Joseph Lee, DO; James McNinch, MD
Background: Three out of four patients diagnosed with COPD in the U.S. have never had spirometry evaluation of their disease. If the evaluation is missed in from optimized treatment based on GOLD criteria.
Objective(s): The primary objective of this quality improvement project was to increase the ordering frequency and completion rate of pulmonary function tests (PFT) by 10% over a three-month period among patients registered under a categorical internal-medicine resident
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Del Med J | January/February 2020 | Vol. 92 | No. 1
