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NTX technology can make Rapid Response Teams more
effective and reduce costs.
Every hospital is in the business of saving lives. And avoiding costs is part of every business. Nihon Kohden America can help every hospital accomplish both. Our NTX technology can lead to faster interventions by Rapid Response Teams. And it is well documented that intervening sooner is better for improving both clinical and financial outcomes.
All of the improvements documented in the 100k Lives Campaign, now expanded to the 5 Million Lives Campaign, clearly illustrate that the Rapid Response Teams not only have contributed to saving over 122,000 lives but also demonstrated significant financial improvements. These incredible results were made possible in part by adhering to a set of protocols and manual observations of all in-patients that could potentially code during their stay. These protocols serve as a set of criteria, or triggers, to activate a Rapid Response Team when one or more occurs.
The triggers are as follows:
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“According to studies cited in the IHI's Getting Started Kit: Rapid Response Teams How-to Guide, more than two-thirds of patients who suffer a cardiac arrest will exhibit signs of deterioration approximately six to eight hours before the arrest. The rapid response team is designed to intervene before the arrest, to assess and stabilize the condition, and if necessary, move the patient to the ICU where the chance of surviving arrest is greater.”
Source: RAPlD RESPONSE TEAMS—Ten Essentials Leaders Need to Know by Gretchen M. Dahlen, FACHE, and Betsy A. Benz |
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Two of the calls to action to initiate a Rapid Response Team alert depend on nurse assessment; the other five depend on manual collection of vital signs and fluid output.
The Rapid Response Teams have proven that reducing the time to intervene on a deteriorating patient condition leads to significant improvement in both clinical and financial outcomes. This has been demonstrated by 3,100 hospitals participating in the 100,000 Lives Campaign, of which 1,500 implemented Rapid Response Teams.
Until now, there has been no device available to automatically collect vital signs while providing freedom to ambulate that is also affordable and economically feasible to place on the vast majority of patients who today are typically not monitored. Hence the collection of the patient’s vital signs has been, for the most part, manually collected every four to eight hours.
The NTX changes this situation completely—it monitors the patient’s vital sign parameters continuously, efficiently and cost effectively. Just imagine the improvements in quality and cost savings that could be achieved if the time to intervene can be further enhanced through the automatic collection of the patient’s vital signs. This is one of the primary applications for the NTX technology.
Using the NTX to avoid costs.
Clinical improvements lead to financial improvements, and the connection is easy to see, as illustrated here:
From clinical improvement to financial gain
The effectiveness of this approach has been demonstrated by 3,100 hospitals participating in the 100,000 Lives Campaign and 1,500 implemented Rapid Response Teams. And the data has been reported and presented by IHI articles appearing in Nursing Management as well as publications on the IHI website. The findings confirm two absolutes that cannot be ignored without compromising both business and clinical outcomes:
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Improving quality always reduces costs |
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Reducing cost will never improve quality |
It’s also easy to see how cost efficiency is achieved by increasing quality:
Think of the cost savings that could be realized through quicker assessments that may avoid costly ICU admissions and lead to reduced ALOS. This is one of the primary applications for the NTX technology.
Click here to read about the NTX and its ability to impact the 5 Million Lives Campaign.
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