Resource Center

OBJECTIVE: To assess the perceptions of physicians and nurses working full-time in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) regarding interdisciplinary communication.

A significant portion of health care resources are spent in intensive care units with, historically, up to two-fold variation in risk-adjusted mortality. Technological, demographic, and social forces are likely to lead to an increased volume of intensive care in the future. Thus, it is important to identify ways of more efficiently managing intensive care units and reducing the variation in patient outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety research has shown poor communication among intensive care unit (ICU) nurses and doctors to be a common causal factor underlying critical incidents in intensive care. This study examines whether ICU doctors and nurses have a shared perception of interdisciplinary communication in the UK ICU.

METHODS: Cross-sectional survey of ICU nurses and doctors in four UK hospitals using a previously established measure of ICU interdisciplinary collaboration.

BACKGROUND: There is widespread interest in measuring healthcare provider attitudes about issues relevant to patient safety (often called safety climate or safety culture). Here we report the psychometric properties, establish benchmarking data, and discuss emerging areas of research with the University of Texas Safety Attitudes Questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to develop a reliable and valid tool for measuring teamwork among emergency medical technician (EMT) partnerships.

METHODS: We adapted existing scales and developed new items to measure components of teamwork. After recruiting a convenience sample of 39 agencies, we tested a 122-item draft survey tool (EMT-TEAMWORK). We performed a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test reliability and construct validity, describing variation in domain and global scores using descriptive statistics.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether obstetric team training in a medical simulation centre improves the team performance and utilisation of appropriate medical technical skills of healthcare professionals.

DESIGN: Cluster randomised controlled trial.

SETTING: The Netherlands.

SAMPLE: The obstetric departments of 24 Dutch hospitals.

OBJECTIVE: Human factors and teamwork are major contributors to sentinel events. A major limitation to improving human factors and teamwork is the paucity of objective validated measurement tools. Our goal was to develop a brief tool that could be used to objectively evaluate teamwork in the field during short clinical team simulations and in everyday clinical care.

Collaborative practice is receiving increased attention as a model of healthcare delivery that positively influences the effectiveness and efficiency of patient care while improving the work environment of healthcare providers. The collaborative practice assessment tool (CPAT) was developed from the literature to enable interprofessional teams to assess their collaborative practice.

OBJECTIVE: To create and test a reproducible method for measuring emotional climate, surgical team skills, and threats to patient outcome by conducting an observational study to assess the impact of a surgical team skills and communication improvement intervention on these measurements.

DESIGN: Observational study.

SETTING: Operating rooms in a high-volume thoracic surgery center from September 5, 2007, through June 30, 2008.

PARTICIPANTS: Thoracic surgery operating room teams.

AIMS: This article is a report of a study to determine the effect of an educational programme and to follow up weekly meetings on nurses and medical resident's attitudes towards positive communication and collaboration.