Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us

Future Healthcare Journal

  • FHJ Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About FHJ
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
RCP Journals
Home
  • Log in
  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us
Advanced

Future Healthcare Journal

futurehosp Logo
  • FHJ Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About FHJ
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

Improving patient safety through an emergency call safety huddle

Shuaib Quraishi and Claire Rowley
Download PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/futurehealth.6-2-s53
Future Healthc J June 2019
Shuaib Quraishi
Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Claire Rowley
Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
Loading

Introduction

Communication among members of the emergency team is integrally linked to patient safety.1 The need to promptly identify and manage the acutely unwell patients is key towards preventing harm to patients. A short daily meeting can help save lives by helping emergency teams to work together more effectively.

At Surrey and Sussex NHS Trust (SASH) we have approximately five to eight emergency calls in a 24-hour period. These are composed of medical emergency team (MET), which is composed of the medical registrar, senior house officer, foundation doctor and a critical care outreach nurse (CCOT). A cardiac arrest team is composed of the MET team as well as an anaesthetist. In the past the emergency team would initially meet over an unwell patient unaware of who each other was, what role they played and what was expected of them. It is known that there is a 1 in 400 million chance of the same team working together again.2

The Safety Huddle has been a part of the culture of improving patient care at SASH since October 2016. Members of the cardiac arrest and medical emergency teams meet each other, roles are allocated every morning and learning from previous emergencies is discussed. Roles and training needs are documented through a standardised checklist on a daily basis. This is in order to create effective teamworking and improve patient safety.

Methods

At SASH we wanted to elicit whether the safety huddles were actually serving their purpose. A qualitative survey was sent via SurveyMonkey to medical and nursing staff who had attended the safety huddles. We had 29 responses from Nurses (CCU and CCOT), medical registrars, and junior doctors (SHO and foundation). A thematic analysis of free text comments was undertaken and the following themes were identified.

Results

  • Structure of the team. 100% of respondents found the huddle to be useful. It identified and allocated roles and created familiarity between team members

  • Improve team working. 100% felt the huddle improved team working.

  • Patient safety. 91% of respondents felt patient safety was improved. This is through increased efficiency during emergencies, effective team working, better organisation and early involvement with critical care.

  • Identification of learning needs. 87% felt learning needs that were identified at the safety huddle had been addressed.

The questionnaire also asked where improvements could be made and these were as follows.

  • Night safety huddle. 72% would like to introduce an emergency huddle for the night team.

  • Debriefing. A debrief session would be useful for feedback on learning from emergencies.

Conclusion

Our MET audit for 2018 has demonstrated that we have made an improvement in patient outcomes by an increase in patients who made an immediate improvement (79% in 2018 from 61% in 2017) versus the patients who made no improvement immediately post MET call (4% in 2018, 21% in 2017).

This suggests that by implementing the safety huddle we may be working more effectively as a team, resulting in improved patient outcomes.

  • © Royal College of Physicians 2019. All rights reserved.

References

  1. ↵
    1. Brady PW
    , Muething S, Kotagal U, et al. Improving situation ­awareness to reduce unrecognized clinical deterioration and serious safety events. Pediatrics 2013;131:e298–308.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  2. ↵
    1. Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Sciences Network
    . Patient Safety Collaborative. Implementation of the 10-minute meeting: a user’s guide. Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Back to top
Previous articleNext article

Article Tools

Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
Improving patient safety through an emergency call safety huddle
Shuaib Quraishi, Claire Rowley
Future Healthc J Jun 2019, 6 (Suppl 2) 53; DOI: 10.7861/futurehealth.6-2-s53

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Improving patient safety through an emergency call safety huddle
Shuaib Quraishi, Claire Rowley
Future Healthc J Jun 2019, 6 (Suppl 2) 53; DOI: 10.7861/futurehealth.6-2-s53
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Introduction
    • Methods
    • Results
    • Conclusion
    • References
  • Info & Metrics

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Watchpoint: an NHS-grown electronic communication system shown to improve patient safety
  • A quality improvement project on improving the compliance of ‘oxygen prescription with target saturations’ in a district general hospital
  • Therapies in ACS: the pitfalls of prescribing
Show more Quality Improvement and Patient Safety

Similar Articles

Navigate this Journal

  • Journal Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive

Related Links

  • ClinMed - Home
  • FHJ - Home

Other Services

  • Advertising
futurehosp Footer Logo
  • Home
  • Journals
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
HighWire Press, Inc.

Follow Us:

  • Follow HighWire Origins on Twitter
  • Visit HighWire Origins on Facebook

Copyright © 2021 by the Royal College of Physicians