Ascom Rapid Response solution contributes towards 53% reduction in admissions to ICU due to IHCA

Problem statement

Approximately 1.6 out of every 1,000 admitted patients experience an in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). Because patients are cared for in single rooms, clinical teams rely heavily on routine spot-check monitoring. When deterioration is detected during these spot checks, hospital policy requires escalation to the appropriate Rapid Response team.

However, the current escalation threshold often triggers communications either unnecessarily or too late to influence outcomes. This contributes to several challenges.

Challenges

• Variable intervals between routine spot checks
• High volumes of rapid response calls, many of which do not require urgent intervention
• An increased number of IHCAs, some of which are missed or escalated too late

The hospital already utilizes a code blue activation workflow

1. Spot-check vitals are automatically uploaded to the EMR
2. National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) is calculated
3. Elevated scores trigger an alert to middleware, which sends email and SMS notifications to the Rapid Response team 

Despite this automation, communication remains inefficient. Alerts are sent broadly, based on the escalation matrix and without context about the patient or the clinical situation. As a result, caregivers struggle to determine whether an alert is relevant to them. Messages are frequently overlooked or assumed to be someone else’s responsibility, reducing the effectiveness of the system.

Solution impact

The impact of the solution can be summarized across three key areas:

Continuous patient monitoring with wearable technology. Implementing wearable devices reduced the time required to measure and document vital signs by 1 minute and 13 seconds, a 54.9% decrease in task duration each time vitals were captured. Integration of wearable data into the EMR also resulted in a 14.5% reduction in respiratory rate documentation errors, improving data accuracy and clinical decision-making.

Enhanced Early Warning Score specificity for IHCA risk. Adjustments to the NEWS2 scoring logic enabled the Rapid Response Team to identify at-risk patients earlier and intervene more effectively. This change led to a 53% reduction in IHCAs requiring ICU transfer—from 1.6 to 0.85 cases per 1,000 patients, equating to 0.75 fewer IHCAs per 1,000 patients.

Improved rapid response communication and accountability. By streamlining the alerting workflow and delivering enriched NEWS2 alerts (including patient context) via Microsoft Teams, response times decreased significantly. Alerts now reach the Rapid Response team in an average of 26 seconds, compared with the hospital’s target of 3 minutes for both code blue and red-zone events.

Estimated cost savings

With 0.75 per 1,000 fewer patients experiencing an IHCA requiring ICU care, and an annual inpatient volume of ~43,400, the hospital avoids approximately: 

• 32.55 ICU admissions per year,
• each with an average 4.9-day ICU stay, totaling
• 59.5 ICU bed-days saved annually.

At a cost of $1,264 per ICU bed-day, this translates to an estimated annual saving of $201,601.68 per year.

Conclusion

Although multiple vendors were engaged for this deployment, Ascom has the portfolio and capabilities to deliver the entire solution independently—from continuous monitoring to clinical alerting and workflow integration.

Interested in learning more about how Ascom can support your organization and help optimise patient care? Contact us here.