Crew Resource Management for Emergency Medical Services Erasmus Project

Project Title

Crew Resource Management for Emergency Medical Services

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; Research and innovation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The Crew Resource Management for Emergency Medical Services (CRM4EMS) project designed, developed, delivered and evaluated a Crew Resource Management (CRM) solution for Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The principal aim of the CRM4EMS project was to provide Emergency Medical Services with a resource that they can adapt and utilise within their organisations to improve system and operational safety, and help mitigate against the causes of errors that result in adverse events for the public who need to use EMS provision and for EMS professionals too.
The main target groups included all emergency medical services personnel who provided emergency ambulance services. These included:
• Physicians;
• Nurses;
• Paramedics;
• Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT).

The need for a HF or CRM approach to EMS provision is increasingly being recognised by these groups of EMS professionals and their organisations. It is hoped that the outcome of this project will help the development of Human Factors programmes in health care that are intended to improve patient safety, the well-being of health services providers, and mitigate against risks in health systems. The CRM4EMS partnership consortium was made up of three partners and three Associated Partner organisations. The three project partners are: Kratis Training and Consulting Ltd (Kratis); Ambulance and Emergency Physicians Association (AAHD); and Trininty College Dublin (TCD). Kratis is a training and consulting organisation with extensive experience of designing, developing, delivering and evaluating Crew Resource Management and Human Factors training in safety critical organisations. Kratis coordinated the project and incorporated, and transformed the findings of the research into educational and training content which was delivered to end-user organisations. AAHD is an EMS NGO with expertise in supporting change and improvement in EMS systems. AAHD are very active in European and national research projects. Their knowledge and expertise of practice and research was critical to the project as it merged applied knowledge with scientifically rigorous research. The expertise and contextual understanding of the end-user partners and associate partners was critical in providing an understanding of the CRM issues which informed the training programme developed in the project. TCD are a research university and provided key theoretical and methodological competence that underpins the social scientific component of the partnership. The expertise of TCD supported the elicitation and transfer of knowledge from the EMS context into a CRM solution by providing the structure for the data. Collectively the expertise of the consortium ensured that the effective collection of CRM related data and analysis of the findings informed the development CRM training content, which was delivered to and evaluated by approximately 60 participants. The CRM4EMS project involved approximately 350 personnel in the research and training deliver phases. Collectively and with the participation of the Associate Partners this partnership consortium was perfectly balanced to deliver the following high quality Intellectual Outputs:
• Training Needs Analysis tool;
• CRM training course for EMS providers;
• Evaluation tool for the CRM training;
• A manual to support the implementation of the CRM solution by EMS providers.

The results of the CRM4EMS project are expected to positively impact EMS providers, their personnel and importantly citizens in the following ways:
• Improvements to patient safety
• Increases in lives saves
• Reduced negative outcomes
• Higher esteem among EMS professionals
• Prevention and Mitigation against Malpractice
CRM4EMS can be used by Emergency Medical Services organisations and their personnel to help ensure safer EMS provision for all. Moreover, it is anticipated that the high quality outputs of the CRM4EMS project will also be delivered more widely into emergency services as well as across the healthcare sector to optimise the project impacts.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 165725 Eur

Project Coordinator

KRATIS TRAINING AND CONSULTING LIMITED & Country: CY

Project Partners

• THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
• Ambulance and Emergency Physicians Association