Reply letter to: Economic evaluations of clinician training – make your research meaningful to decision makers

Reply letter to: Economic evaluations of clinician training – make your research meaningful to decision makers

“…1) Staffing changes affected senior clinicians only (general paediatric consultant cover within working hours (wwh) from year 1 to year 2 and resident senior registrars during out-of-hours (ooh) cover from year 2 to year 3). In both cases, the "escalation time" (time between first staff response and PICU admission), influenced predominantly by action of senior staff, did not change significantly; in contrast, there was a significant reduction in the "recognition time" by ward staff (time between patient deterioration and first staff response; Table 1) as well as a significant increase in staff concerns as a trigger for the initial response [1] -both factors reflecting a major focus of team training. More importantly still, 75% of the reduction in associated PICU bed days occurred when there were no changes in staffing (year 1 to year 2 wwh: 407-201 = 206 + year 2 to year 3 135-89 = 46; this amounts to 252 of a total reduction of 334 bed days).…”

“…We read with interest the letter to the Editor by Foo and Maloney which focused on the cost-benefit analysis of regular in-situ simulation training for a paediatric Medical Emergency Team [1]. We agree that, given increasing demands on limited healthcare resources, the economic rationale for interventions, including training and education, becomes more relevant and acknowledge this area represents a learning curve for many clinicians and researchers, including ourselves.…”