(1502) Aspire From Within: Implementing Donna Wright Learning Model to Achieve AHA Resuscitation Benchmarks

Introduction: Recent updates to the ACLS (2020) protocols have introduced critical changes in the management of patients during crises. The American Heart Association (AHA) quality metrics for resuscitation stress critical timelines: epinephrine administration within ≤ 5 minutes and defibrillation within ≤ 2 minutes. Historically, a practice at a large USA tertiary center has failed to meet these AHA benchmarks, consistently reporting below the recommended standards. This performance gap has driven a need for radical changes. This quantitative quasi-experimental project aimed to evaluate the impact of implementing Donna Wright's adult learning methodology on “time to shock” and “time to first medication” compared to current practices among critical care adult patients.

Methods: A thorough literature review was conducted to identify best practices and current challenges. High-level meetings revealed that institutional policies were barriers preventing nurses from adhering to AACN and ACLS/ALS protocols. A multidisciplinary team evaluated the suitability of Donna Wright's teaching model for adult critical care settings. Psychomotor domain exercises were incorporated into monthly training sessions for critical care units, aiming to empower nurses with updated policies on managing crises. The Critical Care Committee approved revisions to the Code Blue policy to align with the AHA updates. Kurt Lewin’s change theory was employed to guide the facilitation and implementation of the project. Data on “time to shock” and “time to first medication” were extracted from electronic medical records (EMR), and the utilization of the updated Code Blue practices was analyzed for 315 critical care nurses.

Results: A retrospective chart review over an eight-month period showed that the time to defibrillation during adult critical care Code Blues consistently met the ≤ 2-minute benchmark and epinephrine administration was within ≤ 5 minutes.

Conclusions: The implementation of Donna Wright's adult learning methodology, coupled with revised Code Blue policies, improved critical resuscitation timelines significantly in years. These findings indicate that the proposed interventions successfully enhanced the efficiency of critical care responses and supported the alignment of clinical practices with AHA and AACN standards.