An interprofessional training program for intrahospital transport of critically ill patients: model build-up and assessment

ABSTRACT

Intrahospital transport of critically ill patients for diagnostic or therapeutic procedures can be compromised by patient instability, equipment problems or inexperienced teamworking. This quasi-experimental study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an in-situ interprofessional simulation-based training (IIST) model for junior member transport teams. Newly registered postgraduate physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists underwent the IIST. The technical skills (TS) of each participant and non-technical skills (NTS) of each interprofessional team were assessed using well-validated checklists. Thirty-six participants enrolled and were randomly assigned to six experimental and six control teams. Most participants achieved a significantly higher level of both TS and NTS. Both the control and experimental teams overvalued their NTS in the pretest, while the posttest self-assessment scores among the experimental groups more closely matched the expert assessments. Despite challenges in scheduling and the setting, the IIST was successfully conducted in a crowded hospital, which enabled trainees to optimize their learning in a real-life environment. In conclusion, the IIST model can facilitate the development of both TS and NTS for transport team members. Transport teams made up of newly registered staff from different disciplines may lack insight into their NTS in critical patient transfer management, but simulation training may cause improvements.

KEYWORDS:

• Critically ill patient
• high fidelity simulation
• in-situ
• intrahospital transport
• interprofessional education
• teamwork

Acknowledgments

All authors thank Professor Lynn Monrouxe (Chang Gung Medical Education Research Centre; CGMERC), Dr. Malissa Shaw (CGMERC) and Dr. Lesley Pugsley (Cardiff University) for their help with peer-review and English editing and their contribution to the improvement of this article.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Availability of data and materials

Data used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Chang Gung Medical Foundation (Funding Number CDRPG3E0121).