Measuring non-technical skills during prehospital advanced cardiac life support: A pilot study

AIM: To analyse non-technical skills of mobile medical teams during out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) using the validated Team Emergency Assessment Measure (TEAM) tool. To research the correlation between non-technical skills and patient outcome. METHODS: Adult patients who experienced an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest between July 2016, and June 2018, and were treated by a mobile medical team from the University Hospital Leuven, were eligible for the study. Resuscitations were video recorded from the team leader’s perspective. Video recordings were reviewed and scored by emergency physicians, using the TEAM evaluation form. RESULTS: In total 114 OHCAs were analysed. The mean TEAM score was 34.4/44 (SD = 5.5). The mean item score was 3.1/4 (SD = 0.8). On average, ‘effective team communication’ had the lowest score (2.4), while ‘acting with composure and control’ and ‘following of approved standards/guidelines’ scored the highest (3.4). The average non-technical skills theme scores were 2.9 (SD = 0.9) for ‘Leadership’, 3.1 (SD = 0.8) for ‘Teamwork’ and 3.3 (SD = 0.7) for ‘Task management’. ‘Leadership’ was rated significantly lower than ‘Teamwork’ (p = 0.004) and ‘Task management’ (p < 0.001). No significant correlation was found between TEAM and return of spontaneous circulation (p = 0.574) or one month survival (p = 0.225). CONCLUSION: The mean overall TEAM score was categorized as good. Task management scored high, while leadership and team communication received lower scores. Future training programs should thus focus on improving leadership and communication. In this pilot study no correlation was found between non-technical skills and survival.