Critical Event Team Training: Continuing to Practice for Critical Events

Critical Events Team Training resulted from teamwork observations made in acute care settings requiring proficient decision-making, action, and communication by individuals working together to achieve high quality clinical outcomes while minimizing avoidable adverse outcomes.  Critical events team performance is highly visible in the obstetrical acute care settings at most hospitals.  However, team performance has only recently been identified as an area with potential for reducing errors in healthcare.  Healthcare professionals are well trained, hardworking people, highly motivated to provide the safest possible care.  Yet, analysis of adverse outcomes/errors in teamwork suggests there are inherent flaws in just expecting expert teamwork from technically skilled professionals.  Do not overlook the fact that healthcare professionals rarely train together as teams of doctors, nurses and ancillary staff.  Practicing Perinatal emergencies by Perinatal teams rarely occurs in the management of critical events.  Systems in our facility may be cumbersome or unfamiliar made worse when some are rarely used or require extensive training or need redesigning.  Healthcare training has traditionally ignored some well-established data on human error, as well as strategies to improve human performance and identify errors.  Critical Events Team Training (CETT) is designed to address these problems.  CETT is based on a well-established training program used in aviation, naval operations and medical institutions.