Team Training in Health Care: A Review of Team Training and a Look Toward The Future

Published in Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation

During the last few years, the medical field has developed several medical-team training (MTT) programs, some implemented in the military and some developed for commercial medicine. Some of these programs are domain-specific (e.g., anesthesia), whereas others are multi- disciplinary. Some rely heavily on state-of-the-art simulators, whereas others primarily use classroom techniques. Despite these differences, all share the common goal of reducing the number of medical errors via the application of teamwork-skills training while being heavily inspired by CRM.  

The following discussion compares the purpose, strategy, and effectiveness of two distinct categories of MTT, those that are primarily simulator-based and those that are primarily classroom-based. This discussion expands the evidence presented by Pizzi et al. by providing a detailed description of currently available programs. Moreover, we overview the recent results from an independent case study of three classroom-based programs that was conducted by Baker and colleagues. Data collected from MTT course observations, participant questionnaires, and instructor interviews are reported. Finally, we summarize the state-of-the-science and propose a series of research-based propositions for improving the future of MTT.