Facilitators and barriers for high-reliability training in medical centers

Abstract

Objective: The study aims to determine the facilitators and barriers to conducting large-scale CRM-based training in a national health care system (VHA). While there are some studies on this topic, none review training in a federal system or provide data on changes within the system.Methods: Design: Focus Groups collecting qualitative data. Review Methods: We held focus-groups for Clinical Team Training (CTT) facility Points of Contact (POC) and CTT Master Trainers. Responses were collected live and presented to all participants in each focus group session to ensure participant comfort and accuracy. All subgroup leaders agreed on iteratively and qualitatively reviewing participant responses from the four open-ended and three poll questions. Each subgroup leader was assigned a question to conduct a preliminary review of participant responses. After the initial review, a second leader also reviewed the participant responses. Over multiple iterations, themes emerged and were formalized by the team.Results: The focus groups revealed that Leadership engagement in cultural change is imperative. The focus groups also identified that language and examples used in the curriculum may have inadvertently marginalized individuals by making some non-clinical team members feel excluded as part of the team. Our results support the need for highly visible leadership engagement, adequate time to undertake and complete projects, and overcoming skepticism. See table 1 for themes from each question.Conclusions: Qualitative analysis revealed that Leadership engagement in cultural change is imperative. Focus groups identified that specific language and examples used in the curriculum may have inadvertently marginalized individuals who do not have clinical backgrounds. In addition, some participants felt that the use of the term “Projects” created a negative connotation for the required quality improvement project on each unit and instead preferred the terms “micro-project,” “safety strategy,” or “quick wins.”Implemented changes: The program’s name has been rebranded to NCPS Team Training, taking the word clinical out to be more inclusive of all team members who engage in the care of a patient in the clinical setting. A complimentary video series was developed for facility Master Trainers to use as a supplement to their teaching or exclusively as the teaching tool as they facilitate the tabletop simulation exercises. Another change is that the Unit Based Safety Project has been renamed as Unit Based Safety Initiative (UBSI) to remove the stigma of a “project.”