The effects of crew resource management on teamwork and safety climate at Veterans Health Administration facilities

The effects of crew resource management on teamwork and safety climate at Veterans Health Administration facilities

Communication failure is a significant source of adverse events in health care and a leading root cause of sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission. The Veterans Health Administration National Center for Patient Safety established Clinical Team Training (CTT) as a comprehensive program to en...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of healthcare risk management Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 17 - 37
Main Authors: Schwartz, Miriam E., Welsh, Deborah E., Paull, Douglas E., Knowles, Regina S., DeLeeuw, Lori D., Hemphill, Robin R., Essen, Keith E., Sculli, Gary L.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-07-2018
Subjects:
Adult
Aviation
Communication
Curriculum
Female
Health Personnel - education
Hospitals, Veterans - organization & administration
Humans
Interprofessional Relations
Male
Middle Aged
Organizational Culture
Patient safety
Patient Safety - standards
Personnel Administration, Hospital
Safety Management - standards
Staff Development - organization & administration
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teamwork
United States
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
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Summary:Communication failure is a significant source of adverse events in health care and a leading root cause of sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission. The Veterans Health Administration National Center for Patient Safety established Clinical Team Training (CTT) as a comprehensive program to enhance patient safety and to improve communication and teamwork among health care professionals. CTT is based on techniques used in aviation's Crew Resource Management (CRM) training. The aviation industry has reached a significant safety record in large part related to the culture change generated by CRM and sustained by its recurrent implementation. This article focuses on the improvement of communication, teamwork, and patient safety by utilizing a standardized, CRM‐based, interprofessional, immersive training in diverse clinical areas. The Teamwork and Safety Climate Questionnaire was used to evaluate safety climate before and after CTT. The scores for all of the 27 questions on the questionnaire showed an increase from baseline to 12 months, and 11 of those increases were statistically significant. A recurrent training is recommended to maintain the positive outcomes. CTT enhances patient safety and reduces risk of patient harm by improving teamwork and facilitating clear, concise, specific and timely communication among health care professionals.
ISSN:1074-4797
2040-0861
DOI:10.1002/jhrm.21292