Optimizing Rapid Sequence Intubation for Medical and Trauma Patients in the Pediatric Emergency Department

Rapid sequence intubation (RSI) is a critical procedure for severely ill and injured patients presenting to the pediatric emergency department (PED). This procedure has a high risk of complications, and multiple attempts increase this risk. We aimed to increase successful intubation within two attempts, focusing on medical and trauma patients separately to identify improvement barriers for each group.

A multifaceted intervention was implemented using quality improvement methods. The analysis included adherence to the standardized process, successful intubation within two attempts, and frequency of oxygen saturations <92% during laryngoscopy. Trauma and medical patients were analyzed separately as team composition differed for each.

This project began in February 2018, and we included 290 patients between April 2018 and December 2019. Adherence to the standardized process was sustained at 91% for medical patients and a baseline of 55% for trauma patients with a trend toward improvement. In May 2018, we observed and sustained special cause variations for medical patients' successful intubations within two attempts (77-89%). In September 2018, special cause variation was observed and sustained for the successful intubation of trauma patients within two attempts (89-96%). The frequency of oxygen saturation of <92% was 21% for medical patients; only one trauma patient experienced oxygen desaturation.

Implementation of a standardized process significantly improved successful intubations within two attempts for medical and trauma patients. Trauma teams had more gradual adherence to the standardized process, which may be related to the relative infrequency of intubations and variable team composition.