Factors Affecting Communication and Performance among Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT) Personnel
Abstract
Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT) members must coordinate effectively to care for their patients, but such coordination is not explicitly trained. CCATTs are assembled ad-hoc for each deployment. Each team must develop coordination practices in real-time, and patient care could suffer if a team adopts ineffective coordination patterns. This study examined 91 recordings of simulated patient care scenarios in order to characterize CCATT coordination patterns and examine their relationship to individual team member communication behaviors and team performance. We identified Authoritarian and Egalitarian teams based on the distribution of utterances across team members. We examined the link between Authoritarian/Egalitarian status and team performance, as well as differences in communication content across roles. We found considerable variability between teams in the distribution of utterances across team members and a significant interaction between Authoritarian/Egalitarian team type and team role in predicting communication content. Authoritarian/Egalitarian team type did not predict team performance. CCATT coordination patterns appear to be an emergent property of the interactions between members of a particular team. Individuals in our sample were able to adjust their communications to interact adaptively with unfamiliar teammates. Given the flexibility of CCATT personnel in adapting communication styles and the lack of a link between team coordination style and performance, the current practice of assembling ad-hoc CCATTs is unlikely to impact patient care negatively.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1188270
Entities
People
- Ashton Hughes
- Christopher H Stucky
- Clayton D. Rothwell
- Daniel Bevington
- Deanne French
- Frank E. Robinson
- Marissa Tharp
- Sarah Huffman