Surgical care improvement project and the orthopaedic patient.

The Surgical Care Improvement Project is a national quality initiative that is evidence based and supports positive patient outcomes. The initiative addresses a variety of interventions that can dramatically reduce the postoperative complications for the surgical orthopaedic patient. At Park Ridge Hospital (PRH), a clinical team performs daily quality rounds to identify orthopaedic patients who fall within these quality initiatives and to identify processes that involve all clinical staff in successfully achieving these initiatives.

Rapid response team approach to staff satisfaction.

Rapid response team (RRT) is a patient care concept that has received nationwide attention as a resource for hospital staff nurses. Once nurses identify a patient who is clinically declining, they call upon the assistance of the RRT member. Within an 800-bed acute care hospital, a job satisfaction survey tool was developed to ask licensed staff on an orthopaedic unit what type of impact the RRT has on their job satisfaction.