Resource Center

BACKGROUND: Effective teamwork is crucial for safe surgery. Failures in nontechnical and teamwork skills are frequently implicated in adverse events. The Observational Teamwork Assessment for Surgery (OTAS) tool assesses teamwork of the entire team in the operating room. Empirical testing of OTAS has yet to explore the content validity of the tool.

BACKGROUND: Although effective teamwork is fundamental to patient safety in the operating room (OR), acute stress increasingly is recognized as detrimental for teamwork. This study concurrently assessed teamwork and stress levels experienced by OR team members.

METHODS: Data were collected in real time in 20 elective surgical cases. The validated Observational Teamwork Assessment for Surgery was used to assess teamwork, whereas stress was assessed using the validated State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.

OBJECTIVE: To test the construct validity of the Observational Teamwork Assessment for Surgery (OTAS) tool.

SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: Poor teamwork in surgical teams has been implicated in adverse events to patients. The OTAS is a tool that assesses teamwork in real time for the entire surgical team. Existing empirical research on OTAS has yet to explore how expert versus novice tool users use the tool to assess teamwork in the operating room.

AIM: The aim of the study reported here was to address the need to assess and train teamwork and non-technical skills in the context of Resuscitation. Specifically, we sought to develop a tool that is feasible to use and psychometrically sound to assess team behaviours during cardiac arrest resuscitation attempts.

Role clarity is a crucial issue for effective interprofessional collaboration. Poorly defined roles can become a source of conflict in clinical teams and reduce the effectiveness of care and services delivered to the population. Our objective in this paper is to outline processes for clarifying professional roles when a new role is introduced into clinical teams, that of the primary healthcare nurse practitioner (PHCNP).

Simulation-based training (SBT) is a methodology for providing systematic and structured learning experiences. The effectinvess of this methodology is dependent on the quality of performance measurement practices in place. Performance measurement during SBT must be diagnosed; that is, the causes of effective and ineffective performance must be determined. This diagonstic measurement drives the systematic decisions concerning corrective feedback and remediation. The purpose of this article is to provide a state of the science review of human performance measurement systems in SBT.

Simulation-based training (SBT) is a methodology for providing systematic and structured learning experiences. The effectiveness of this methodology depends partly on the quality of the performance measurement practices one is using. Performance during SBT must be diagnosed; that is, the causes of effective and ineffective performance must be determined. Diagnostic measurement drives the systematic decisions concerning corrective feedback and remediation.

AIMS: This study measured the effect of aviation-style team training on 3 surgical teams from different specialties. It focused on team working and communication, particularly briefing, time-out, and debriefing, and sought to understand how improvements in team skills could be implemented in a broad range of naturalistic surgical environments to improve safety, quality, and efficiency.

Student-run free clinics (SRFCs) often include an interprofessional group of health professions students and preceptors working together toward the common goal of caring for underserved populations. Therefore, it would seem that these clinics would be an ideal place for students to participate in an interprofessional collaborative practice and for interprofessional education to occur.

On 10 September 2012 United States Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, announced the selection of a National Coordinating Center for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. Her announcement confirmed that the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center would lead the center in partnership with other educational and health care delivery sites around the country.