Escalation Project
Early recognition of patient clinical deterioration followed by a prompt and effective response can minimise the occurrence of adverse events and may reduce the level of intervention required when delays occur. Failure to escalate care for a deteriorating patient can have devastating consequences, especially when the patient is a child.
The Escalation Project will develop a best practice approach to the early recognition and response to clinical deterioration in the WA health paediatric setting.
The benefits will be:
- reduce practice variations and provide an evidence based system
- allow nurses and doctors and families to effectively use the system
- enable safer patient monitoring
- standardise handover communication within and between hospitals
- enable clinical staff to easily work across WA health facilities
- provide a uniform pathway for families to escalate care
- embed patient and family involvement throughout.
Project timeline
Quarter 1 - November to February 2019
- Establish the steering group
- Appoint project staff
- Stakeholder engagment
- Literature review
- Baseline data collection/scoping/environmental scan
- Data collation/analysis
- January: Identify pilot sites.
Quarter 2 - March to May 2019
- Ongoing stakeholder engagement
- Consultations and identify local needs
- Develop standardised system: charts, tailored escalation plans and responses
- Research protocol, HREC and SSA
- Training pilot sites and champions
- Prepare prospective evaluation.
Quarter 3 - June to August 2019
- Ongoing stakeholder engagement
- Commence pilot
- Pilot site support
- Mix methods evaluation:
- Audits
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Focus groups.
Quarter 4 - September to December 2019
- Data analysis
- Feedback to stakeholders
- Revision and refinement system, resources and implementation tools
- Report writing and recommendations for statewide implementation
- Manuscript for publication.