Business Plan for Second Victim Intervention Team

This business plan will be developed as a planning and operations guide for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) to work with unit and department leaders to create a 24-hour second victim response team to support clinicians throughout the hospital. This plan will outline the service, market analysis and costs of creating and operating this team. The second victim response team (SVRT) will be a 24-hour service provided to volunteers, clinicians, and staff to assist in times when there is an unexpected or adverse patient experience or outcome. The team will be comprised of clinicians such as nurses, physicians and respiratory therapists, from high-risk areas of the hospital (ICU, OR, etc.). These staff members will form a frontline team that will respond to the needs of staff at any hour of the day to avoid long-term, debilitating, or career-ending psychological or emotional trauma. There is a clear unmet need, and evidence based practice that is showing that an SVRT program can be beneficial to implement in patient care areas (Scott, Hirschinger, & Cox, 2009). There is a distinct need to support clinical staff psychologically and emotionally while providing patient care, but currently there is no support for staff when these negative patient outcomes occur. The program will be paid for by the facility, with no cost to the staff consumer. Funds will be utilized from the Employee Assistance (EA) budget. Allocation of these funds and the SVRT budget can be found in this business plan.