Complex Care Patient | Failure to Rescue

Running head: COMPLEX CARE PATEINT
FAILURE TO RESCUE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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INTRODUCTION & DEFINITION
There are an enormous number of patients that the nurses deliver care every day. It is
quite natural that the conditions of the patients are not always same. The term ‘failure to rescue’
is devised to evaluate quality of care, which can be provided to the patient immediately and this
term was intended to examine the ability of the supervisor to stabilize the patient. Therefore, the
failure to rescue is indication of the quality of nursing care. Most of the cases it can be seen in
older patient to whom the appropriate care is difficult to provide. Another event can also lead to
this scenario such as critical operation situation such as liver transplant, coronary heart disease.
These patients often undergo deterioration. This essay focuses on the research related to ‘failure
to rescue’ of the patients with deteriorating condition in health care facility, the incidence of
adverse condition, analysis and evaluation of the condition of patient, family and health care
facility, and finally two nursing strategies to maintain patient safety.
The term ‘failure to rescue’ can be explained as incapability to halt the deterioration of
patients that leads to death or permanent disability. It is caused from a complication of the
treatment procedure or from an illness that cannot be cured. Currently it is considered as an
indicator to evaluate the quality of nursing care. The term also inferred that it presents the
number of death among patients who suffer treatable conditions undergoing a surgery.
INCIDENCE OF ADVERSE EVENTS IN AUSTRALIA
The maximum instances of failure to rescue happen with surgical patients in acute
healthcare systems. A study revealed the data that mortality rate was higher after

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pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) in Australia. The result showed 42 major complications were
identified as critical consideration. The nurses are incapable to rescue these patients (Stevens et
al., 2019). It is seen that majority of the hospitalized patients in health care are at increased
tendecy of developing disease related complications, which can occasionally result in failure to
rescue (FTR). The factors responsible for incidence of FTR involve age of the patient, quality of
the care provided in the hospital. In hospitalized condition, many complications are associated
with failure to rescue system. The diseases include acute respiratory distress syndrome,
congestive heart failure, myocardial infraction and renal failure. Sometimes, the patients may
also be traumatized which is considered as adverse conditions. The study revealed that about 7.5-
16.6% of patients’ death occurred in acute care settings. In Australia approximately 15-20% of
after surgical patient faced complications and 5%-7% of them cannot make up to discharge.
It has been observed that in Australian patient, cardiac arrest, chest pain, hypertension,
COPD, respiratory distress, myocardial infraction have adverse events and eventually lead to
failure to rescue (Silver et al., 2018). The number of reasons is there to cause deterioration of the
patients. These includes lack of proper treatment care, inattentive situation of the nurses,
incapability of identification of the alterations of the patient’s conditions also the incorrect
decision making (Jones & Johnstone, 2017) These may lead to this situation of patients’ death.
Several factors need to be evaluated in failure to recover understanding. The
physiological deterioration of the patient needs to be understood well. Also the sociology of
hospital and the psychological parameters are required to check individually (Subbe & Barach,
2017).

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Failure to rescue is related to the quality and safety concern that eventually includes
nurse-sensitive indicators. The following are the concerns that gradually increase the chances of
complications. The reasons are inadequate decision making, failure to detection represent the
clinical complications of treatment (Musta, Rush & Andersen, 2017).
The relationship with the nurse and other health professionals along with nursing
education are related to this matter. It revealed that lower number of employees increased the
risk of more complications in patients leading to failure to rescue. Additionally, the patient’s age,
type of adverse condition and others may involve in this matter. The teaching procedure and
availability of modern technology have an important role in the happenings of FTR (Jarvelainen,
Cooper & Jones, 2018).
Moreover, there are some other factors associated with health care system or provided
facility that is also connected with the occurrence of failure of rescue. It may contain absence of
proper infrastructure or lack of managing committee. There is another factor associated with the
current problem that is delayed care and immediate response to patients’ needs. All these events
occurred because there is lack of nurses and other employees who are involved in patient care.
All the above mentioned events are responsible to cause complications of the treatment and
leading to failure to recover of the patient.
IMPACT OF FAILURE TO RESCUE TO THE PATIENTS, THEIR
FAMILY AND HEALTHCARE FACILITY
It is less important to say that failure to rescue has great impact on the patient, as well as
their family and of course on the health care facility. The failure to rescue has raised the patient’s

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life at stake. It can lead to mortality of the individual that is the immediate cause of failure to
rescue. It can disable the patient for lifetime if they survive. Of course this is a harsh thing that a
human can bear for their upcoming life. If the patient gets permanently disabled this can affect
their mental health condition and causes severe traumatic response and psychological distress
among them. it has been seen that in old trauma patients, the presence of fragility has raised the
odds of FTR in comparison with non-weakness. The study has revealed that frailty status is
responsible for FTR (Joseph et al., 2016).
After the FTR, the patient may lose his cognitive memory and it is also may be difficult
for the patient to remember their family members. It is a great loss for their family as well. The
consequences of the event are very unfortunate. It has been observed that the family members
often increased the risk and tendency of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
syndrome within them. Frequently, they blame the employees related to patient care. Many
professionals have acknowledged that sometimes the family members need counseling from the
nurses or respective experts to come out of this situation.
In the health care facility and the employees, the impact of the event often cannot be
considered. It is regarded as a measurement of quality of care in the hospital and the lowering the
number of FTR is the common goal for all health care system. By reducing the number of FTR
they can claim to provide proper and good quality care to their patients. In addition with this, it
can be seen that, the FTR occurrence depends on the basis of personality and the situation. Some
nurses take it positively whereas some feel pressure and responsible for the whole event.

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EVALUATION OF THE STRATEGIES ADAPTED TO DECTREASE THE
RATE OF FAILURE TO RESCUE
It is quite evident from the above discussion that failure to rescue rate signifies the
provision of quality care. To ensure the rate of failure to rescue remains low, several strategies
have been developed so that optimum quality of care is provided to the patients and the mortality
rate is reduced as well. The strategies that are developed involve the participation of the patients,
families of the patients, the health care professionals and the health care facilities (Read,
Betancourt & Morrison, 2016). Two of the most important and innovative strategies that have
been widely accepted Australia are discussed in the following paragraphs in details.
The most important and practical strategy that has garnered support from all across
Australia is enhancing the level of education based on failure to rescue in all the nursing
institutes. The rate of failure to rescue can only be decreased when the complete strength of
nurses are well aware of the scenario and always take precautionary measures to avoid it. They
are also provided with additional training in increasing their reflexes for identifying any cases
showing any signs of failure in rescuing. They are also provided with clinical reasoning practical
classes for efficient identification of the cues a patient is showing and critically analyze, assess,
diagnose, evaluate and initiate the medical treatments (Coventry, Maslin‐Prothero & Smith,
2015). Apart from this, in the recent years the government and the education experts have
developed simulation classes both for the newly employed nurses as well as the older nurses. The
simulative experience gives the nurses a brighter and broader perspective as well as brings them
in front of issues that they might face in future to harness their nursing skills. These interactive
simulation classes are also conducted in health care facility centers so that everyone can

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understand and get ideas about real scenarios that may arise and how to act during these
scenarios (Kim, Park & Shin, 2016). The other things that are involved in this strategy also
include awareness campaigns and nursing workshops that are conducted in nursing institutes,
hospitals and other health care facilities to make everyone aware of the importance of proper
nursing education in decreasing the mortality rate and in decreasing the rate of failure to rescue.
The nursing workshops will enhance their insights as well as inform them about the newer
innovation in the field of nursing and the newer policies that can be implemented in the process
of treatment to improve the patient condition (Dickens et al., 2019).
Another strategy that needs immediate implementation is increasing the nursing
workforce or increase in the nurse to patient ratio across all the medical care facilities present in
Australia. Development of strong interdisciplinary teams are also required. It has been surveyed
and recorded by various researchers that the number of nurses present in Australia is much lower
than the required number. This has led to various problems among the nurses such as frustration
due to excessive workload, lack of relaxation time which in turn increases their fatigue and
tiredness. Therefore it is very much required to increase the nursing institutes so that more
number of students can pursue nursing and thus, decrease the workload on existent nurse and
bring in a proper healthy balance within the system. The other thing is the development of
interdisciplinary team in all the health care facilities. This would provide a broader perspective
towards the patient treatment. The monitoring of patient by various professionals belonging from
various specializations would leave the patients with no cues unattended and would lead to a
faster recovery and there are very less chance of failure to rescue scenario. The interdisciplinary
team will also increase the rate of detection of many diseases in an early stage facilitating the

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treatment as soon as possible. It has been also observed that the collaboration of nursing staffs
belonging from various specializations have also increased the confidence of the nurses and
provided them with high self-esteem. As a result, it would be help them to provide optimum
quality care as per every patients’ requirements. It would also facilitate their capability of
recognizing any malpractice and cases of clinical negligence and provide them with best possible
care to bring them back in healthy life (Craigie et al., 2016). Thus, increase in the recruitment of
nurses and building an experienced interdisciplinary teams in health care facilities would help in
decreasing the rate of rescue to failure cases.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it can be concluded that there are different factors that are responsible for the
increased rescue to failure cases in Australia. Most of the cases are observed in the patients who
have undergone any surgery and the ones who are considerably older or above the age of 55.
These cases of failures to rescue can be decreased by the strategies that the government has
developed for ensuring optimum quality care to the patients. The strategies include the
development of the nursing education system to decrease the instances of cases related to failure
to rescue and increasing the nursing workforce in Australia and development of interdisciplinary
teams. These strategies if followed and implemented minutely in the health system would
definitely improve and develop the nursing facilities in Australia.

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REFERENCE
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attitudes, experience, and knowledge regarding routine physical healthcare: systematic,
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