Behavioural rating system of non-technical skills in obstetric aeromedical transfer setting

Mrs Anuradha Perera^1,2, Dr Rob Griffiths¹, Dr Julie Myers¹

¹Occupational and Aviation Medicine Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Otago, , New Zealand, ²Department of Nursing , Facutly of Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, , Sri Lanka

This abstract forms a part of a larger research work of my Ph.D. study aiming at Non-Technical Skills (NTS) of Health Professionals and Teams in the high acuity Obstetric Aeromedical Transport.

Introduction:
Non-technical skills (NTS) are defined as the cognitive, social, and personal resource skills that complement technical skills contribute to safe and efficient task performance. Observable behaviours include both cognitive skills: situational awareness, decision-making, and social skills: communication, teamwork, and leadership. NTS are a key component of safe medical practice and highly relevant to effective clinical performance. Competency in NTS is imperative for health professionals performing urgent and critical tasks under complex, high-risk, time-pressured, dynamic conditions. In aeromedical obstetric transfer settings, the potential impact of non-technical skills on patient outcomes is significant.

Originally from aviation, behavioural assessment tools are being used in health care domains to evaluate NTS. No such tool currently exists for the obstetric transfer setting so a systematic process was required to identify specific NTS and their expected behaviours for this particular clinical environment.

Objectives:

1. To identify the available tools to evaluate the non-technical skills required by health professionals in obstetric aeromedical transfer settings
2. To evaluate their psychometric properties in order to identify the most related tool(s) to use.

Method:

This systematic narrative review involved systematic searching of literature followed by narrative analysis. The electronic databases Embase, PsycINFO, Pub med, Medline, Web of science, CINAHL, Science Direct and Google scholar were searched from inception.

Results:

Validated tools are available to evaluate NTS skills among anaesthetists, surgeons, scrub nurses, and air ambulance clinicians. The review identified few tools aimed at evaluating the NTS of health care teams working in emergency care and obstetric environment.

Discussion:

GAOTP is the multidisciplinary NTS tool that provides the most comprehensive and relevant NTS framework for the obstetric aeromedical environment.

Conclusion:

The framework of GAOTP can be adapted to establish Non-Technical Skills in Obstetric Aeromedical Transfers(NOAT). A future study will evaluate the NOAT rating system in a simulated aeromedical obstetric environment.

Biography:

I am a Ph.D. candidate from the Occupational and Aviation Medicine Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington and also I am a academic from the University of Peradeniya: most comprehensive public university in Sri Lanka. From the background, I am a nurse with midwifery training.