Integrating palliative medicine and critical care in a community hospital.

Our objective was to describe the rationale and implementation of educational, environmental, clinical, and communication interventions designed to maximize indicators of improved palliative care in a community hospital intensive care unit. Surveys were used to develop educational content and methods for all levels of clinical staff and medical education. All clinical staff expressed confidence in clinical palliative processes but not in communication and psycho-spiritual issues shared with patient/families. An ambassador program and expanded visiting hours turned the waiting room into part of the therapeutic environment. New palliative order sets and practice guidelines were introduced. Interdisciplinary care planning was guided by a family communication record. Communication with families was enhanced by the use of the ambassadors, comprehensive care planning and sharing with the family within 24-48 hrs of admission, and ongoing meetings triggered by care plan changes. Quality indicators for intensive care unit-based palliative care proposed by experts provided a benchmark for evaluating the completeness of our intervention. Although not easily measured or demonstrated, it is our implicit assertion that this set of process and education interventions changed the daily nature of discourse in the intensive care unit among staff and between the staff, patients, and families.

Cognitive versus technical debriefing after simulation training.

BACKGROUND: Recent literature describes "cognitive dispositions to respond" (CDRs) that may lead physicians to err in their clinical reasoning. OBJECTIVES: To assess learner perception of high-fidelity mannequin-based simulation and debriefing to improve understanding of CDRs. METHODS: Emergency medicine (EM) residents were exposed to two simulations designed to bring out the CDR concept known as "vertical line failure." Residents were then block-randomized to a technical/knowledge debriefing covering the medical subject matter or a CDR debriefing covering vertical line failure. They then completed a written survey and were interviewed by an ethnographer. Four investigators blinded to group assignment reviewed the interview transcripts and coded the comments. The comments were qualitatively analyzed and those upon which three out of four raters agreed were quantified. A random sample of 84 comments was assessed for interrater reliability using a kappa statistic. RESULTS: Sixty-two residents from two EM residencies participated. Survey results were compared by technical (group A, n = 32) or cognitive (group B, n = 30) debriefing. There were 255 group A and 176 group B comments quantified. The kappa statistic for coding the interview comments was 0.42. The CDR debriefing group made more, and qualitatively richer, comments regarding CDR concepts. The technical debriefing group made more comments on the medical subjects of cases. Both groups showed an appreciation for the risk of diagnostic error. CONCLUSIONS: Survey data indicate that technical debriefing was better received than cognitive debriefing. The authors theorize that an understanding of CDRs can be facilitated through simulation training based on the analysis of interview comments.

Using simulation to instruct emergency medicine residents in cognitive forcing strategies.

PURPOSE: Recent literature defines certain cognitive errors that emergency physicians will likely encounter. The authors have utilized simulation and debriefing to teach the concepts of metacognition and error avoidance. METHOD: The authors conducted a qualitative study of an educational intervention at Lehigh Valley Hospital during academic year 2002-03. Fifteen emergency medicine residents--eight from postgraduate year three (PGY3) and seven from postgraduate year two (PGY2)--experienced a difficult simulator lab scenario designed to lead them into a cognitive error trap. The debriefing was a PowerPoint with audio format CD-ROM with a didactic on succinylcholine (15 minutes) and cognitive forcing strategies (30 minutes). After debriefing, residents were interviewed by an ethnographer with an 11-question (15-minute) interview and completed an eight-question written survey. RESULTS: The residents ranked this experience second only to direct patient care for educational effectiveness. Survey results (Likert scale, 1 = disagree completely to 5 = agree completely) included "Improved my ability to use succinylcholine" (mean = 4.73), "Improved my ability to diagnose and treat hyperkalemia" (mean = 4.6), and "Cognitive forcing strategies is a useful educational effort" (mean = 4.33). The major interview themes that evolved were that the simulation lab was a positive experience; succinylcholine knowledge was gained; mistakes caused reflection/motivation; the lab was stressful; attending feedback was desired; the lab was realistic; and cognitive forcing strategies were discussed. When asked what they learned, more of the PGY3s commented on cognitive strategies or heuristic techniques (six out of eight), whereas the PGY2s commented on knowledge gained about succinylcholine (five out of seven) and only one PGY2 mentioned cognitive strategies. CONCLUSION: Pilot data suggest that metacognitive strategies can be taught to residents, though they may be better understood by upper-level residents.