Trauma Team Performance

Abstract

The resuscitation of severely injured patients is one of the most challenging processes in healthcare. A trauma team must assemble rapidly at unpredictable times and must be prepared for unique and chaotic circumstances involving one or more patients with unknown injuries. Historically, the assessment and resuscitation by a varied spectrum healthcare professionals acting together as a team has improved the care of critically injured patients. The central goal of this thesis was to gain knowledge of how to enhance trauma team performance. The focus of this thesis is on evaluating, organizing and supporting trauma teams in order to enhance trauma resuscitations. Part 1 describes the origin and development of the trauma team and outlines the importance of team organization, training, and evaluation. Part 2 evaluates the use of video analysis as method to evaluate trauma resuscitations. Part 3 discusses how the composition of the trauma team influences trauma team performance and introduces methods to support the trauma team and improve its performance.