2 June 2009 – The initiative Team Resource Management of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital has won the Dutch IGZ ZorgVeiligPrijs (Safe Health Care Award). That was announced by Inspector General Gerrit van der Wal on June 11th at the yearly patient safety congress of the IGZ (Dutch Health Care Inspectorate). The IGZ is the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate that protects and promotes health and health care by ensuring that care providers, care institutions and companies comply with laws and regulations.
Team Resource Management
The price goes to the best initiative in the field of patient and client safety in Dutch health care. Since 2008, the Rotterdam Eye Hospital trains all operation teams in team resource management. With this, all those involved are trained by aviation experts in recognising and acknowledging risks, the role of hierarchy and working in teams. The training consists of four elements, among which a flight simulator session.
Human factors
Human factors play an important role in case of causing unintentional damage to the patient, according to a research from the NIVEL, the Dutch Institute for Health Care research. “The training promotes the safety awareness of all those involved in the operation room, by paying attention to these human factors and non-technical skills, such as leadership, feedback and decision-making” according to Dirk de Korne, Policy Advisor and Researcher at the Eye Hospital.
Flight simulator
In the flight simulator of a Boeing or Airbus, participants put their studies into practice in a surrounding where they can’t fall back on their professional technical skills. What happens when the nurse is in the captain’s chair? Who makes the choice to pull out the landing gear in that case? De Korne: “Taking away the unnecessary hierarchy is of great importance to make health care safer. Due to team resource management, doctors are more likely to be vulnerable. And nurses indicate that they feel more stimulated to ring the alarm bell when they think something almost goes wrong.”
Jury
The jury, including Wim Deetman (member of the Council of State, the advisory body of the Dutch government and parliament that advises regarding legislation and administration), Peter Holland (former president KNMG, Royal Dutch Medical Association for physicians of The Netherlands) and Rein Willems (Christian Democratic Appeal member of the Senate of the Dutch government and former chairman of Shell Netherlands), praises the Eye Hospital because they are continuously working on safety. “After a previous time out procedure, by which the number of left and right switches were reduced to zero, a new ‘best practice’ has to be brought to the attention by learning from the business world” according to the jury’s report.
