White Memorial Medical Center a "better than fifty percent reduction in calls of rapid responses"
Avoiding Respiratory Depression During Conscious Sedation: An Interview with Richard Kenney, RRT
LOS ANGELES, March 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- White Memorial Medical Center, a leader in patient safety, said today that Richard Kenney, RRT, the hospital's director of respiratory care services, has collaborated with patient safety advocate, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS), on an educational video to instruct health care professionals, patients and their families about safety measures to avoid respiratory depression during treatment with opioids following surgery which dramatically reduces the need for rapid responses. Respiratory depression is the decrease in a patient's ability to exhale and inhale. It is a side effect of anesthetic, narcotic, and sedative medicines and conscious sedation.
To better understand what White Memorial and its affiliate Adventist Health hospitals have done to reduce rapid response calls by 50% and improve patient safety and health outcomes, the PPAHS interviewed Mr. Kenney. A rapid response team (RRT) is a multidisciplinary team most frequently consisting of intensive care unit (ICU)-trained personnel available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for evaluation of patients not in the ICU who develop signs or symptoms of clinical deterioration. The RRT intervention was developed in response to research that revealed adult patients on general medical and surgical hospital units often have evidence of physiological deterioration several hours before cardiopulmonary arrest.
Conscious sedation is induced by a combination of medicines administered to patients to help them relax, a sedative, and to block pain, an anesthetic, during a medical procedure. In the interview, Mr. Kenney offered 5 keys to avoiding respiratory depression during conscious sedation:
1. Recognize that Each Patient Reacts Differently to Opioid Dosages.
2. Don't Rely Upon Pulse Oximeter Monitoring.
3. Monitoring with Capnography Provides a More Accurate Assessment of Patient's Ventilatory Status.
4. Ensure that Nursing and Respiratory Therapists are Working as a Team.
5. Using Capnography Monitoring has Reduced Rapid Response Calls by More Than 50%.
The interview with Mr. Kenney can be viewed by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YN2_Qfdti0&feature=youtu.be
About White Memorial Medical Center
White Memorial Medical Center has been a part of the community for generations. Keeping the community healthy has been the mission of the hospital since the Seventh-day Adventist Church founded it in 1913. The hospital is a thriving part of the neighborhood, presenting health fairs and other community services throughout the year.
About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety
Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, in order to improve health care delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org
Video - http://youtu.be/3YN2_Qfdti0
SOURCE White Memorial Medical Center
Related Links
WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?
Newsrooms &
Influencers
Digital Media
Outlets
Journalists
Opted In
Share this article