Impact of a shared decision-making mHealth tool on caregivers’ team situational awareness, communication effectiveness, and performance during pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation: study protocol of a cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Effective team communication, coordination, and situational awareness (SA) by team members are critical components to deliver optimal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Complexity of care during CPR, involvement of numerous providers, miscommunication, and other exogenous factors can all contribute to negatively influencing patient care, thus jeopardizing survival. We aim to investigate whether an mHealth supportive tool (the Interconnected and Focused Mobile Apps on patient Care Environment [InterFACE]) developed as a collaborative platform to support CPR providers in real-time and share patient-centered information would increase SA during pediatric CPR. METHODS: We will conduct a prospective, cluster randomized controlled trial by groups of 6 participants in a tertiary pediatric emergency department (33,000 consultations/year) with pediatric physicians and nurses. We will compare the impact of the InterFACE tool with conventional communication methods on SA and effective team communication during a standardized pediatric in-hospital cardiac arrest and a polytrauma high-fidelity simulations. Forty-eight participants will be randomized (1:1) to consecutively perform two 20-min video-recorded scenarios using either the mHealth tool or conventional methods. The primary endpoint is the SA score, measured with the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) instrument. Enrollment will start in late 2020 and data analysis in early 2021. We anticipate that the intervention will be completed by early 2021 and study results will be submitted in mid 2021 for publication. DISCUSSION: This clinical trial will assess the impact of a collaborative mHealth tool on increasing situational awareness and effective team communication during in-hospital pediatric resuscitation. As research in this area is scarce, the results generated by this study may become of paramount importance in improving the care of children receiving in-hospital CPR, in the era of increasing communication technology. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04464603. Registered on 9 July 2020. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-021-05170-3.