Human factors in risk management masterclass

Abstract

“Medical staff reported that error is important but difficult to discuss and not handled well in their hospital,” states the BMJ .1 Though not an obvious association, patient safety and safety in the airline industry have numerous parallels. Crew resource management (CRM) from the airline industry has been adapted to team resource management (TRM) for other industries, most notably health care. Terema is a key provider of “ te am re source ma nagement” skills to the NHS, using analogies and lessons from the aviation industry. After numerous enthusiastic recommendations from colleagues, we attended this evidence based masterclass in March 2010. This course provides an introduction to human factors and their impact on patient safety, and is suitable for raising awareness among all those involved in health care, but especially doctors and nurses. Almost three quarters of errors in aviation have a human cause, but nobody knows what the proportion is in health care. To encourage good practice from the outset, certain hospitals, such as University College Hospital London, send …