Systematic Debriefing for Critical Events Facilitates Team Dynamics, Education, and Process Improvement

Debriefing is used in clinical settings to support interprofessional staff, improve processes, and identify educational needs. Nurses who lead debriefing sessions are empowered to improve processes.

Nurse leaders identified the need for debriefing outside the critical care areas due to the rising acuity levels.

Two nurse leaders developed a debriefing initiative in one urban teaching hospital following rapid responses, codes, and stressful situations. Nurses developed a Debriefing Facilitation Guide to collect qualitative aspects of clinical emergencies to improve processes, education, and team dynamics.

Following each debriefing session, we deductively purposively coded the qualitative data into 3 a priori themes: the American Heart Association's team dynamics, process improvement, and educational opportunities. We identified opportunities for improvement for these themes during our first 54 debriefing sessions.

Following each debriefing session, the debriefing nurse leader intervened on all educational and process improvement opportunities identified and facilitated positive team dynamics.