Article
Saving Time under Pressure: Effectiveness of Standardizing Pediatric Resuscitation Carts
Hospital Pediatrics
(2016)
Abstract
Background
Resuscitation situations are high risk, high stress situations where delays in care can have significant influences on outcomes. Standardization of care protocols, as well as equipment is postulated to decrease some of the stress and risk. The objective of this study was to document increased efficiency in finding resuscitation equipment in a standardized resuscitation cart.
Methods
A new standardized resuscitation cart design was created and a multimedia education program addressing the new design was launched. A goal was set to find required equipment in less than 15 seconds. Five cohorts of 10 nurses were timed at finding randomly chosen items 1, 12, 49, 152 and 351 days after new cart launch. T-tests were used to compare estimated acquisition times of requested items using the new cart system to the old cart system (baseline), while a separate regression analysis was used to model skill degradation.
Results
All pairwise comparisons showed significant decreases in mean acquisition time compared to baseline. One day after launch, the mean time to find items was reduced by 46%. Mean time to find requested items was below the goal of 15 seconds 12, 49, and 152 days after launch. This effect was lost by 351 days from launch. Regression analysis predicted the time to find items would exceed 15 seconds 287 days after launch.
Conclusions
Standardizing the resuscitation cart design greatly reduced time to find items and was accomplished with reduced financial cost. Skill degradation did occur over time and refresher training was required.
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 21, 2016
Citation Information
Erich C. Maul, Barbara Latham and Philip Westgate. "Saving Time under Pressure: Effectiveness of Standardizing Pediatric Resuscitation Carts" Hospital Pediatrics (2016) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/erich_maul/29/