CRC Press Improving Healthcare Team Communication: Building on Lessons from Aviation and Aerospace

Communications research in aviation is widely regarded by many in the healthcare community as the 'gold standard' to emulate. Yet healthcare and aviation differ in many ways, as do the vital communications shared among members of clinical teams. Aviation team communication should, then, be understood in terms of what lessons will benefit those who work in healthcare. In Improving Healthcare Team Communication, renowned experts provide insights from 'sharp end' operator research in high-hazard sectors that shed light on the performance of cognitive tasks including resource availability assessment, allocation, anticipation, prediction, trade-off decisions, speculation and negotiation. The book reports on recent field research to address what is known, and what needs to be learned, about team communication among operators. Students, clinicians and healthcare managers can find answers in it to the questions they face daily. How can healthcare information be better shared? What can we expect from its improvement, and how do we get there? Lessons learned from team communication research and experience in aviation and healthcare will point the way to improved patient safety. Review 'To those working in patient safety, it is maddening that the results of root cause analyses always seem to be, "It's a communications problem". Nemeth and his colleagues show us why that is probably true, although not in the traditional sense of transmission of information. Rather, with abundant examples from both aviation and healthcare, they show that communication is about context, perception, relationships, and culture - aspects of healthcare that are far more complicated, messy, and dysfunctional than aviation ever was. Here a cluster of the world's experts extract lessons from both domains that those who seek to improve patient safety will find fascinating and useful.' Lucian L. Leape, MD, Harvard School of Public Health, USA 'For too long, healthcare has focused on technical skills rather than teamwork skills; we are suffering for that. Far too many people suffer preventable harm and excess costs of care; failures in communication and teamwork underlie much of this suffering. Improving Healthcare Team Communication holds the promise to change this. The book is written by international experts, informed by a strong scientific background, and provides practical tools to improve communicaton. It should be required reading for those seeking to improve patient safety.' Peter J. Pronovost, The Johns Hopkins University, USA 'Problems with and failures of communication are amongst the most important and frequently cited factors contributing to healthcare-associated harm. A comprehensive multi-disciplinary review is overdue and this book is a must for all with an interest in human factors in healthcare and for those who wish to learn about how people communicate in other domains.' Bill Runciman, University of Adelaide, and Australian Patient Safety Foundation.Australia About the Author Christopher P. Nemeth, Ph.D., CHFP, is a Research Associate (Assistant Professor) in the Cognitive Technologies Laboratory in the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at The University of Chicago, Illinois, USA.