• SreyRam Kuy and Ramon A L Romero.
• Surgical Service, Center for Innovations in Quality, Outcomes and Patient Safety, Overton Brooks Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Shreveport, Louisiana; Department of Surgery, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Shreveport, Louisiana; Department of Surgery, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana. Electronic address: sreyram@gmail.com.
• J. Surg. Res. 2017 Jun 1; 213: 177-183.

BackgroundCommunication failure is one of the top root causes in patient safety adverse events. Crew resource management (CRM) is a team building communication process intended to improve patient safety by improving team dynamics. First, to describe implementation of CRM in a Veterans Affair (VA) surgical service. Second, to assess whether staff CRM training is related to improvement in staff perception of a safety climate.Material And MethodsMandatory CRM training was implemented for all surgical service staff at a VA Hospital at 0 and 12 mo. Safety climate questionnaires were completed by operating room staff at a baseline, 6 and 12 mo after the initial CRM training.ResultsParticipants reported improvement on all 27 points on the safety climate questionnaire at 6 mo compared with the baseline. At 12 mo, there was sustained improvement in 23 of the 27 areas.ConclusionsThis is the first published report about the effect of CRM training on staff perception of a safety climate in a VA surgical service. We demonstrate that CRM training can be successfully implemented widespread in a surgical program. Overall, there was improvement in 100% of areas assessed on the safety climate questionnaire at 6 mo after CRM training. By 1 y, this improvement was sustained in 23 of 27 areas, with the areas of greatest improvement being the performance of briefings, collaboration between nurses and doctors, valuing nursing input, knowledge about patient safety, and institutional promotion of a patient safety climate.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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