P050: How aware is safe enough? Situational awareness is higher in safer teams doing simulated emergency airway cases

Abstract

Introduction: Situational Awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about the patient condition, stability, the operational environment and an appropriate clinical course. The Situational Awareness Global Assessment Tool (SAGAT) is a validated tool for measuring situational awareness. The SAGAT tool was measured during a series of standardized high fidelity advanced airway management simulations in multidisciplinary teams in New Brunswick Emergency Departments delivered by two simulation programs Methods: Thirty eight simulated emergency airway cases were performed in situ in Emergency Departments and in learning centers in Southern New Brunswick from September 2015 to October 2017. Eight standardized cases were used whose educational objectives were to develop the optimization of critically ill patients prior to induction, to deliver patient-centered anesthesia and to choose an appropriate airway strategy. Learner profiles collected. Cases were divided into two groups; those that contained critical errors and those that did not based on video assessment. Critical errors were defined as failure of 1) Oxygenation 2) Shock correction 3) Induction dose estimation 4) Choice of airway management paradigm. The SAGAT has a maximum score of 13 and was assessed by research nurses after each case for all participants. SAGAT scores were non-normally distributed, so results were expressed as medians with interquartile ranges. Mann Whitney U tests were used to calculate statistical significance. Results: Results. Of the 38 cases, 14 contained one more critical errors. The median SAGAT score in the group that contained critical errors was 8 +/− 2 (IQR). The median SAGAT Score in the group that contained no critical errors was 11 +/− 2 (IQR). The median scores we significantly different with a p-value of 0.02. Conclusion: In this study in simulated emergency cases, higher SAGAT scores were associated with teams leaders that did not commit safety critical errors. This work is the initial analysis to develop standards for Simulated team performance in Emergency Department teams.