Does interprofessional team-training affect nurses' and physicians' perceptions of safety culture and communication practices? Results of a pre-post survey study.

BACKGROUND: Many hospitals seek to increase patient safety through interprofessional team-trainings. Accordingly, these trainings aim to strengthen important key aspects such as safety culture and communication. This study was designed to investigate if an interprofessional team-training, administered to a relatively small group of nurses and physicians would promote a change in healthcare professionals' perceptions on safety culture and communication practices throughout the hospital. We further sought to understand which safety culture aspects foster the transfer of trained communication practices into clinical practice. METHODS: We conducted a pre-post survey study using six scales to measure participants' perceptions of safety culture and communication practices. Mean values were compared according to profession and participation in training. Using multiple regression models, the relationship between safety culture and communication practices was determined. RESULTS: Before and after the training, we found high mean values for all scales. A significant, positive effect was found for the communication practices of the physicians. Participation in the training sessions played a variably relevant role in the communication practices. In addition, the multiple regression analyses showed that specific safety culture aspects have a cross-professional influence on communication practices in the hospital. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggest that interprofessional team-trainings of a small group of professionals can successfully be transferred into clinical practice and indicates the importance of safety culture aspects for such transfer processes. Thus, we recommend the consideration of safety culture aspects before starting a training intervention.

[Patient safety -- mission for the future: The importance of Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) in clinical practice]. / Patientensicherheit - Auftrag für die Zukunft - Bedeutung von CIRS-Systemen für die klinische Praxis.

Every day patients experience harm due to errors and complications. To improve this situation, patient safety is increasingly becoming important in the treatment process. One aspect to increase patient safety is the Critical Incident Reporting System (CIRS). Observers and members of the care team are given the opportunity to anonymously report critical incidents and thus allow an analysis by an evaluation team. The goal is not to sanction the behavior of an individual, but to identify particular structural and organizational sources of error and to derive improvements.