Treating the trauma team

Background It's been decades since "golden hour" has been incorporated in trauma patient management and "trauma team" became the front line soldiers of ER. Many studies has shown the benefit on patients outcome after implementation of trauma system. However the best way of maintaining and improving trauma team performance especially on non-technical skills is still not well known. It is known that continues learning, quality measurement and feedback are the foundation of keeping high standards on patients safety. Methods Trauma team audit has been carried out in Lithuanian major level III trauma center. We incorporated two new components in trauma audit. First one was continuous simulation learning: every morning all trauma team members had to gather up in the ER for one simulation session. The second was measurement of non-technical skills and giving feedback after simulation learning and real-life experiences. Trauma team performance has been evaluated using our developed evaluation tool. Trauma team members has not been informed about the audit. Results Trauma team performance on non-technical skills has been evaluated before the intervention and after using our developed performance evaluation tool. Conclusion We still have a far way to a well-balanced and functioning trauma team. But "time offs" at the beginning of a shift seems to be an easily accomplished performance improvement strategy. "Time offs" drills, quality measurement and feedback should become a standard everyday procedure especially in less crowded emergency rooms, were real life practice is not that common