Team Coordination Style Is an Adaptive, Emergent Property of Interactions Between Critical Care Air Transport Team Personnel

Abstract

ObjectiveCritical Care Air Transport (CCAT) teams care for critically ill or injured patients during long-duration flights. Despite the differences between the CCAT domain and a more traditional clinical setting, CCAT clinicians are not explicitly trained how to coordinate care in the aircraft environment. We characterized the team coordination patterns adopted by CCAT teams and explored any links between team coordination style and performance. MethodsThis retrospective study used transcripts from 91 CCAT teams as they completed simulated patient care scenarios during an advanced training course. Qualitative and quantitative measures were used to characterize team behavior. ResultsVocalized content varied by team role, with physicians acting as leaders. The type of content verbalized by each team role depended on the team coordination style. The team coordination style and the content of vocalized messages were not affected by prior team member deployment or the characteristics of particular scenarios, and the team coordination style did not predict measures related to patient status. ConclusionIndividual team member coordination behaviors vary depending on the coordination style used by the team as a whole. Coordination style appears to arise from the interactions among individual team members rather than in response to situational factors external to the team.