46. Nurses perception of rapid response team in a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

For the last 30 years, the goal of improving the survival rate for patients post cardiopulmonary arrest has remained unattainable. This apparent failure to rescue opened the door to devise new strategies to improve patient outcomes at the onset of subtle deterioration, rather than at the point of cardiac arrest. Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) introduced the Rapid Response Team (RRT) as one of the six preventative steps to save lives. Nurses’ perceptions of the RRT influenced by the content and process support provided. Nurses are responsible to detect the early signs of deterioration, and activate the RRT service. The aim of this cross sectional descriptive study was to examine nurses’ perceptions about the effect of the RRT and perceived content and process support in managing patient deterioration by using mental model maintenance and building at individual, group and hospital levels in a tertiary hospital in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 300 nurses were recruited using a convenience sampling method. The study findings showed that the overall perceptions about the RRT were high. There was a significant positive correlation between the frequent utilization of the RRT and the perceived content support. The analysis of the open ended questions indicated that there were more advantages to have the RRT service than disadvantages. This study suggested that RRT service is influential in improving nurses’ perceptions about managing Patients’ deterioration. Training program about RRT utilization should include both content and process support, which may enhance building and maintaining mental model.