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Analyzing communication errors in an air medical transport service
Joseph D Dalto1, Charlene Weir, Frank Thomas
1University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA. joe.dalto@imail.org
Air Medical Journal
|May 2, 2013
Summary
Communication errors are frequent in air medical services, with staff identifying less than a third. Most errors occur at the lowest or highest communication levels, highlighting the need for better analysis tools.
Area of Science:
- Aviation Safety
- Healthcare Quality Improvement
- Communication Science
Background:
- Poor communication in healthcare settings can lead to adverse events.
- Currently, no standardized methods exist for classifying and analyzing air medical communication errors.
- This study addresses the need for understanding communication error patterns in air medical services.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the frequency of communication errors within an air medical quality and safety assurance reporting system.
- To classify the types of communication errors encountered.
- To identify communication error patterns based on established hierarchies.
Main Methods:
- A random sample of 278 quality assurance reports from 825 submitted in 2009 was analyzed.
- Communication errors were identified, classified, and mapped to Clark's communication level hierarchy (levels 1-4).
- Descriptive statistics and chi-square analysis were used to evaluate the data.
Main Results:
- Communication errors were identified in 21% of the analyzed reports (64 errors in 58 reports).
- Staff correctly identified only 28% of these communication errors.
- The majority of errors occurred at Level 1 (66%) and Level 4 (33%), with Levels 2 and 3 being rare (1%).
Conclusions:
- Communication errors are prevalent in air medical quality assurance reports.
- There is a significant under-recognition of communication errors by reporting staff.
- An air medical communication ontology is needed to enhance the identification and analysis of these critical errors.
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