RRM, or Resuscitation Room Management is a new term, that has been created to try and define the tasks that individuals who participate in Emergency Department resuscitation can utilise to maximise patient safety, minimise error, enhance communication, and therefore bring about optimal patient outcomes. RRM has been developed to try and define the non-clinical skills and tasks specific to our industry, our workplace, and our patients, that can make a resuscitation run smoothly and safely.
The majority of in-hospital resuscitations occur in Emergency Department resuscitation rooms, and we will be focusing our attention on this space, however we will also be encouraging multi-disciplinary input developing the RRM concept, as we want this information to filter across specialties, especially those who attend Emergency Departments as outsiders, who are called on help with ED resuscitations.
Isn’t this just “CRM” with a different name?
Many people have been trying to apply the term “CRM” (Crew, Cockpit or Crisis Resource Management) to medical and resuscitation settings. I feel strongly that this is a counter-productive idea for many reasons. Firstly, we do not perform resuscitation in cockpits, we don’t operate with a crew, and I for one don’t want my resuscitations labelled as a “crisis”. CRM is an industry specific set of guidelines, skills and job-specific tasks that have been developed over decades in the aviation industry to minimse pilot error and maximise safety. In coming posts I will elaborate on the marked differences between aviation and medicine, and why I think using the term “CRM” in medical settings is inappropriate.
RRM is new.
RRM does not have a clear definition.
RRM will evolve over time.
There is no evidence that RRM will make any difference to resus outcomes, but nor is there evidence for Adrenaline in cardiac arrest – but we can’t seem to get rid of it…
There is however strong evidence that resus is an error prone environment, where simple omissions, slip-ups and mis-communications can have serious, and potentially fatal outcomes. Hopefully RRM can start reducing these errors, and make resus safer for everyone.
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