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Abstract
Millions of adverse events occur around the world each year leading to increased hospital length of stay, increased mortality, and decreased quality of life. Several adverse events occur due to failure to rescue (FTR) situations. FTR events happen when mortality occurs following a major medical complication. With the assistance of electronic early identification of clinical deterioration, early interventions may be implemented to decrease FTR events. This quality improvement project was guided by the PICO question: In adult medical-surgical inpatients, does proactive rounding by the critical care code team (CCCT) with utilization of an automated early warning system, compared with no proactive rounding, improve recognition of clinical deterioration, and decrease transfers to critical care? A REDCap database was built and utilized to track proactive rounding along with Modified Early Warning Scores (MEWS) by the CCCT at a tertiary medical center. The percentage of transfers to critical care from the fourth quarter of 2022 was then compared to fourth quarter of 2023 using a paired T-Test to determine statistical significance. A proactive rounding process was developed, and 664 rounds were entered. Of these, 114 were proactive rounds with a MEWS score and 550 were non-proactive rounds. Rounding triggers were compared and analyzed which revealed that the primary reason for rounding was staff concerns. This supported the literature that collaboration was important to improve patient outcomes. There was a decrease in transfers to critical care units post-rapid response events, however it was not statistically significant.