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.

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.