Healthcare team communication training in the United States: A scoping review

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this literature review was to identify interventions designed to improve healthcare team communication in the United States. We conducted a review of peer-reviewed, English-language articles describing interventions aimed at improving healthcare team communication. We analyzed articles that met pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria and characterized who is testing communication interventions, the rationale for testing, and ways of measuring effectiveness. We descriptively categorized the strength and types of study findings. Thirty articles were retained in our analysis. Most assessments were conducted by academic medical centers, the Veterans Health Administration, and teaching hospitals. Interventions sought to improve teamwork, patient safety, clinical outcomes, costs of care, and enhance provider job satisfaction and well-being. Intervention strategies included didactic lectures, simulation, Crew Resource Management, quality improvement, or a combination of these approaches. The vast majority employed a pre-post survey design and measured outcomes using participant feedback. Many assessments failed to utilize a social science theory or communication-specific measures. Interventions with the best training content were conducted at academic medical centers, used a pre-post design, and utilized statistical analysis to analyze results. While interventions for improving healthcare team communication are diverse and have uneven effectiveness, early markers of success merit continued development and assessment.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by Ishani Rana in reviewing some of the articles identified in our initial search.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

Our study was reviewed and exempted by the Institutional Review Board at Stony Brook University.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by institutional funds from the Office of the Dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.