Failure to Rescue in Nursing

Running Head: FAILURE TO RESCUE IN NURSING
Failure to Rescue in Nursing
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FAILURE TO RESCUE IN NURSING 2
Failure to Rescue in Nursing
Introduction
The concept of failure to rescue captures the notion that even though not every problem
in healthcare is preventable, healthcare systems are required to rapidly identify as well as treat
the condition when they take place. Even though every healthcare institution has surgical
challenges, the quality of response to the negative events differs broadly across hospitals. An
effective response is key to stop the potential transition to a progressive cascade of negative
happenings from initial serious problems which can result in death or failure to rescue. As most
physicians know and acknowledge, the tragic result of an individual’s medical trajectory is not
sudden or unexpected. Rather, these failures happen before a steady accumulation of small
medical clues (Bacon, 2017). The challenge of individuals developing complications during the
process of hospitalization as well as suffering from mortality and morbidity has normally been
present. Presently, intense attention has been put on this phenomenon as it is believed to be the
primary cause of hospital mortality which is preventable. The paper will discuss in great detail
the concept of failure to rescue as it is linked to the deteriorating individual in the acute
healthcare context. The paper will also evaluate strategies used by nurses in preventing this
occurrence in the healthcare institutions including the role of interprofessional practice in
enhancing the safety of the patients. The paper will also investigate barriers which affect the
execution of intervention strategies for failure to rescue.
The adverse events and analysis of the Failure to Rescue in Australia
Failure to rescue happens when a generally healthy patient who has been hospitalized
deteriorates, develops complications and consequently suffers an adverse medical consequence.

FAILURE TO RESCUE IN NURSING 3
The deterioration and complications mostly entail subtle and sometimes not subtle signs and
symptoms which are dismissed as not so serious or which are missed by the nurses entirely
(Garvey, 2015). It is key to note that nurses are very key in preventing failure to rescue
challenges. There are four prevention aspects, that is, accurate and careful monitoring, timely
recognition of a complication, an effective and timely intervention which is based on the
complication, and the activation of response team as required. Each of the four requires time for
direct observation of the patient. Thus, few numbers of staffs, as well as short staffing, has the
potential to reduce the ability of healthcare to spend ample time at the bedside.
Negative events like loss of lives, damage to the critical physiological parts, depression
and physical damages during patient hospitalization and surgical complications are quite
common in clinical settings. In the United States of America, about one-fifth of individuals who
underwent in 1998 lost their lives because of the treatable and preventable complications (Chung
et al. 2017). In Australia, 20% of the individuals have experienced at least one health
complication after undergoing surgery while about 8% of them lost their lives before discharge
(Assareh et al. 2014). Effective treatment and timely identification of the complication once it
happens can prevent loss of lives. The rate of failure to rescue differs across individuals and
healthcare institutions with various features (Wied et al. 2018). Aging individuals, as well as
those having higher pre-operative comorbidities, have a greater risk of complication as well as
the risk of loss of lives after surgery. Empirical studies conducted in United States of America,
Australia and other European hospitals have revealed that individuals who have undergone
surgery in healthcare institutions with a high death rate did not suffer from excessive medical
complications compared to individuals who were in healthcare facilities with lower death rates
yet were less likely to have a quality life due to lower quality of care. Failure to rescue is

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influenced by a host of healthcare institution structures as well as process, and it has been linked
to the patient-nurse ratios, poor or limited access to radiology services, training of medical and
nursing staff as well as the availability of emergency operating room (Mushta, Rush & Andersen,
2018).
There are empirical data to suggest the association between the provision of quality of
critical care and failure to rescue even though the evidence of the postoperative care admission
benefit is erratic. One of the most broadly debated failure to rescue determinant is the
relationship between volume and outcome. The relationship between mortality and hospital
volume has been demonstrated for intricate surgical procedures as well as common clinical
emergencies (Chen et al. 2019). It should be noted that such observations have influenced
reconfiguration of services in different countries including Australia yet sparked a lot of
controversies. Failure to rescue has negative implications even to the families of the patient
especially when the patient loses his or life, physically or physiologically damaged. The family
become mentally affected like becoming depressed.
The relevance of failure to rescue rates
Certain deaths in a healthcare facility are inevitable. Most of the mortality rates between
healthcare facilities have little to do with variations in the quality of healthcare which individuals
receive nevertheless, yet is more linked to the level of co-morbidity and illness of people who are
receiving treatment a well as their degree of vulnerability. Measures such as the healthcare
facility standardized death rate attempt to account for this by applying the statistical techniques;
however statistical adjustments can ever be ideal or perfect (Ou et al. 2014). Failure to rescue
provides a different way of discovering how a healthcare facility performs. For individuals
undertaking surgery, the probability of developing a process, such as pneumonia or bleeding is