This presentation was given at the Health Quality & Safety Commission's event, patient deterioration New Zealand: current state and future developments, held on 29–30 November 2018.
Modern hospitals are treating patients of increasing age and co-morbidity with more complex interventions, while simultaneously attempting to reduce in-hospital length of stay and contain health-care related costs. Hospitalised patients are at risk of developing a serious adverse event during their hospital stay, and every hospital needs systems to prevent, detect, recognise and response to clinical deterioration.
Although Rapid Response Systems have decreased in-hospital cardiac arrests, evidence for their effectiveness on reducing in-hospital mortality and other adverse events is less rigorous. Although there has been a marked change in the nature of hospitalised patients over the past 20 years, there has been relatively little change in the models of care delivered.
This talk will focus on the change in hospitals over the last 20 years and the increasing gap between what ward staff are expected to do, and what they can do. Challenges for recognising and responding to patient deterioration (both reversible and irreversible) will be discussed as will potential pre-emptive and reactive solutions to address them.
