Medical Team Coordination (Medteams) Congressional Interest

Abstract

Abstract : The objective of this research work package is to improve advanced trauma life support through improved coordination of the extended team of medical personnel that provides this type of initial medical care - e.g., EMT, trauma nurse, emergency medicine physician. The research approaches this goal through (1) the analysis of team tasks and information flow to identify task conflicts, information bottlenecks, and skill deficiencies within advanced trauma life support, (2) the refinement of medical team evaluation techniques for assessing overall performance along specific behavioral dimensions, (3) the development and evaluation of focused training interventions for reducing certain types of coordination errors common to advanced trauma life support, and (4) the selective demonstration and evaluation of telemedicine, information management, and decision aid technologies that have the potential for improving medical team coordination and collaboration. The initial year of this research focuses on trauma patient care within a definitive care trauma center (e.g., Madigan Army Medical Center), with linkages to EMT services. Subsequent phases of the research will be extended to address field operations more representative of the combat casualty care setting. Through its systematic behavioral investigation of the extended team process involved in advanced trauma life support this research complements current Army and DARPA initiatives in the fields of telemedicine and trauma care informatics.