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RMH has been recognized with the 2007 VHA Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence from VHA Inc. for the hospital’s implementation of a rapid response team as a way to provide safer, more effective care for patients.

VHA Inc., a national health care provider alliance, serves more than 2,400 health care organizations nationwide, including 1,400 hospitals. The 2007 VHA Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence honors organizations that have met or exceeded national performance standards in specific clinical categories.

RMH was one of only 69 VHA member hospitals to be recognized for deploying and using rapid response teams to enhance patient care at the bedside.

“We are gratified to be recognized for the results we’ve achieved in deploying and using rapid response teams to enhance patient care at the bedside,” said RMH President Jim Krauss. “This award validates the dedication of our clinical staff and physicians to continually provide excellent care.”  

Implementation of rapid response teams was a key recommendation of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as part of its national agenda to engage hospitals in performance improvement. VHA was one of the few national health care organizations to promote rapid response teams and help hospitals to implement them. In 2006, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded VHA a $150,000 grant to increase the number of hospitals deploying rapid response teams.

Rapid response teams include a variety of hospital staff members, including nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists and pharmacists. When patients show signs of distress or changes in vital signs, the team is called to the bedside within minutes for rapid assessment and treatment. Their response is crucial because patient survival rates are directly impacted by how quickly patients can be assessed and treated.

Preventing code blues (when the patient’s heart stops beating or he/she stops breathing) outside the hospital’s critical care or intensive care unit decreases patient mortality rates significantly. 

To receive the award in this category, recipients had to demonstrate a measurable decrease in codes outside of the intensive care unit with no increase in inpatient mortality rates. Hospitals had to achieve at least a 20 percentage point decrease in patient codes outside of the ICU to qualify for the award. Improvement had to be driven by the hospital’s rapid response team.

RMH created its Rapid Assessment Team in November 2005. It is led by Christy Crawford, RN, and Ed Speese, RRT. Over a 12-month period, due to the work of this team, RMH achieved a 50 percent reduction in patient codes outside the ICU with no increase in mortality. 

 “Our participation in VHA helps us provide the best quality of clinical care for our patients, so we are gratified to be recognized by VHA for our efforts in care at the bedside,” said Dale Carroll, M.D., RMH senior vice president, clinical effectiveness, and chief medical officer.

“At the heart of the covenant between patients and hospitals lies the belief that clinical excellence is paramount," said Trent Haywood, M.D., J.D., chief medical officer at VHA. “RMH is a shining example of what can be achieved when a hospital's actions are guided by the pursuit of clinical excellence.”