Description:

In-hospital adverse events such as cardiac arrests are associated with high morbidity and mortality. They also disrupt normal workflow, as nurses, doctors, and other emergency response personnel are summoned to the patient’s room. While beneficial to the sick patient, this diversion of resources may lead to inadequate supervision of other ward patients, leading to an increase in their risk of an adverse outcome. Patient safety research within the hospital have mostly concentrated on identifying patient-level risk factors associated with development of critical illness. Non-patient factors are lesser addressed. This talk will focus on exploring whether or not the development of critical illness in a patient in a ward affects the outcome of neighboring patients.