• Robyn P Cant, Joanne E Porter, Simon J Cooper, Kate Roberts, Ian Wilson, and Christopher Gartside.
• School of Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University, Narre Warren, Victoria, Australia.
• Emerg Med Australas. 2016 Dec 1; 28 (6): 641-646.

ObjectivesThis prospective descriptive study aimed to test the validity and feasibility of the Team Emergency Assessment Measure (TEAM™) for assessing real-world medical emergency teams' non-technical skills. Second, the present study aimed to explore the instrument's contribution to practice regarding teamwork and learning outcomes.MethodsRegistered nurses (RNs) and medical staff (n = 104) in two hospital EDs in rural Victoria, Australia, participated. Over a 10 month period, the (TEAM™) instrument was completed by multiple clinicians at medical emergency episodes.ResultsIn 80 real-world medical emergency team resuscitation episodes (283 clinician assessments), non-technical skills ratings averaged 89% per episode (39 of a possible 44 points). Twenty-one episodes were rated in the lowest quartile (i.e. ≤37 points out of 44). Ratings differed by discipline, with significantly higher scores given by medical raters (mean: 41.1 ± 4.4) than RNs (38.7 ± 5.4) (P = 0.001). This difference occurred in the Leadership domain. The tool was reliable with Cronbach's alpha 0.78, high uni-dimensional validity and mean inter-item correlation of 0.45. Concurrent validity was confirmed by strong correlation between TEAM™ score and the awarded Global Rating (P < 0.001), with 38.4% of shared variance. RNs praised the instrument as it initiated staff reflection and debriefing discussions around performance improvement.ConclusionNon-technical skills of medical emergency teams are known to often be suboptimal; however, average ratings of 89% were achieved in this real-world study. TEAM™ is a valid, reliable and easy to use tool, for both training and clinical settings, with benefits for team performance when used as an assessment and/or debriefing tool.© 2016 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine.

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