Saving seconds to save lives
Rodney Wayne, a Navy Veteran and clinical educator at VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, knows precision is critical in emergency care, where a clinical team’s skill and focus matter most.
Meeting critical needs in sepsis and cardiac arrest care
With more than 30 years in trauma units, ICUs and flight nursing, Rodney Wayne’s seen the intense pressure of treating patients during chaotic, life-threatening events like cardiac arrest and sepsis. This experience inspired him to create critical care dosing guides.
These simple, reliable guides help highly trained clinicians work seamlessly together, giving them the tools to respond faster and more accurately when every second counts.
Sepsis and cardiac arrest are two of the most urgent situations clinicians face. Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to infection, which affects over 1.7 million Americans each year.
Sepsis occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection. Instead of attacking the infection, the body begins causing damage to its organs and tissues. Without immediate intervention, sepsis can lead to organ failure, shock and death.
Cardiac arrest affects more than 650,000 people in the United States each year. Cardiac arrest happens when the heart stops beating, cutting off blood circulation to essential organs, including the brain.
In those emergencies, quick actions and proper treatment are often the difference between life and death.
Wayne’s sepsis guide removes possible guesswork by offering quick-reference tables for antibiotics and other critical drugs that are matched to each patient’s weight. His guides allow clinicians to act without worrying about miscalculations.
His cardiac arrest guide syncs teamwork and expertise, providing clear instructions for using life-saving medications like epinephrine, which restarts the heart and amiodarone, which stabilizes heart rhythm. These guides help clinicians stay focused and respond effectively during critical situations.
Backed by results and trusted by VA
Wayne’s dosing guides are what clinicians call cognitive aids or tools that help teams follow complex protocols in high-pressure situations without missing any critical steps, similar to a checklist.
A study by the National Library of Medicine found that cognitive aids reduced missed steps in emergency care by 70%, which is why these guides have become part of Code Blue training at VA Salt Lake City.
“These dosing guides have already been used with great enthusiasm from clinical education and the Resuscitation Education and Innovation (REdI) program staff,” said Wayne.
By providing clear, easy-to-follow steps, the guides help clinicians stay focused, making accurate decisions.
The path to VA
Wayne’s dosing guides may seem simple, but they are carefully crafted tools that improve patient care by providing precise guidance during emergencies.
Soon, these dosing guides will be available on crash carts across health care. A crash cart, also called a code cart, is a mobile unit of emergency equipment and medications ready to assist clinicians during life-threatening situations such as cardiac arrest.
Before being made available across VA, Wayne’s dosing guides needed thorough review and approval to ensure accuracy and reliability. After receiving authorization from VA's Acute Care Subcommittee, a partner was selected to handle printing, distribution and ensuring the guides remain up to date.
Initial rollout focuses on VA facilities nationwide. The guides’ flexible design, including its ability to be translated to other languages by certified medical interpreters, means they could be adapted for use in health care settings and by health care professionals beyond VA.
A Veteran making a difference for Veterans
Wayne’s work shows what the VHA Innovators Network (iNET) can make possible. This program helps VA employees bring their practical ideas to life, helping them make fundamental changes in Veterans’ health care.
So far, VA's innovation programs have improved care for over 5 million Veterans, spread better practices to more than 150 facilities and engaged over 25,000 VA employees in improving care.
For Wayne, developing the dosing guides was about making emergency care safer for Veterans. His story shows through VA programs, like iNET, employees can use their experience to problem solve, develop new ideas and improve Veteran health care.
Wayne’s dosing guides have the potential to improve emergency care not only for Salt Lake City Veterans but also for patients in health care systems across VA and around the world.
Jesus Flores is a writer and editor on the VISN 19 Creative Task Force and a Marine Corps Veteran.