Transactive Memory Systems and Hospital Trauma Team Performance: Shared Experience in Action Teams

Area of Science:

• Medical research
• Organizational psychology
• Team dynamics

Background:

• Effective teamwork is crucial in high-stakes environments like trauma care.
• Transactive memory systems (TMS) are theoretical mechanisms linking shared knowledge to team performance.
• Understanding how team experience influences TMS and patient outcomes is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the theoretical mechanism linking shared team experience and team performance via TMS.
• To investigate the impact of TMS on patient outcomes in severe acute traumatic injury care.
• To determine if team experience predicts TMS strength beyond individual experience.

Main Methods:

• Behavioral indicators of TMS were coded from video recordings of trauma resuscitations.
• Objective measures of team performance (patient lengths of stay) were obtained from hospital records.
• Data from 121 patients treated by trauma teams were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Patients treated by trauma teams with strong TMS had significantly shorter ICU and hospital lengths of stay.
• A one standard deviation increase in TMS was associated with a 3.3-day reduction in hospital stay and a 1.9-day reduction in ICU stay.
• Team experience predicted TMS strength, and TMS mediated the effect of team experience on performance.

Conclusions:

• Strong transactive memory systems significantly improve patient outcomes in trauma care.
• Team experience is a critical factor in developing robust TMS.
• Findings have implications for strengthening TMS in trauma teams and advancing theories on organizational learning.