In this episode, I’ll discuss how top-performing resuscitation teams are more likely to include pharmacists.
Exactly how many hospitals have pharmacists on their resuscitation teams is unclear, as it has been over a decade since the last US-based survey I can find in the medical literature.
At that time, in 2007, about one-third of hospitals had pharmacists on their resuscitation teams, and this was associated with a statistically significant reduction in patient deaths to the level of 12,880 per year.
With the progression of pharmacy practice since then, and especially the expansion of services to the emergency department, one would hope that number of hospitals with pharmacists on the resuscitation team has greatly increased beyond one-third.
A more recent study published in 2018 sought to determine the characteristics of resuscitation teams at top-performing hospitals.
One finding was that top-performing hospitals reported more support staff, including pharmacists, in the emergency response systems.
This came from a qualitative study that interviewed 158 clinicians from 9 hospitals to identify common characteristics of top-performing resuscitation teams.
The top-performing teams were consistently in the top quartile of the Get With The Guidelines (GWTG)® Resuscitation registry for 3 consecutive years.
One of the recommendations from this group of authors was that hospitals should ensure the participation of diverse disciplines during
in-hospital cardiac arrest care, including pharmacy expertise.
This month for members of my Hospital Pharmacy Academy, I have updated the training that is designed to prepare pharmacists to respond to inpatient medication emergencies. This includes 4 new trainings, on introduction to code/rapid response, ACLS guideline highlights for pharmacists, rapid response for the sepsis patient, and common causes for inpatient medical emergencies. This is in addition to many other resources to help in your practice. To get immediate access to all the Hospital Pharmacy Academy has to offer, go to pharmacyjoe.com/academy.
If you like this post, check out my book – A Pharmacist’s Guide to Inpatient Medical Emergencies: How to respond to code blue, rapid response calls, and other medical emergencies.
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