From cockpit to operating theatre to drilling rig floor: five principles for improving safety using simulator-based exercises to enhance team cognition

Abstract

For over 30 years, aviation has conducted training courses to enhance team performance and improve safety involving simulation with observation and directed feedback. Participants' performance is observed by trained and experienced observers who then provide feedback using behaviour-based evidence noted during the simulator exercise. More recently, in healthcare, operating theatre personnel have adopted simulator-based training (SBT), observation and feedback for learning and practice to reduce the potential for human errors and improve safety. Maritime and nuclear power also incorporate high-fidelity simulators and feedback in team training interventions including technical and non-technical skills. The design and development of drilling rig simulators means that drill crews can now practise and test out their decision-making and receive feedback from observers, with the aim of improving team non-technical skills and consequently reducing the potential for errors. This paper presents five principles gleaned from research and the experiences of both aviation and healthcare to be applied to the development of simulator-based exercising for drilling teams. The principles include: (a) developing learning objectives and expected performance standards; (b) training the team as a whole; (c) using a structured observation tool; (d) providing feedback during a structured debrief; (e) repeat the SBT regularly to enhance expertise and retain performance standards. It is anticipated that these principles can be generalised for simulator-based exercising to benefit team social and cognitive competences in other high-hazard or process industries.

From briefing, through scenario, to debriefing: the maritime instructor’s work during simulator-based training

“…In particular, taking on a situated action approach, the research questions concern how the participants are orienting towards general instructions from the prospective briefing phase in the subsequent scenario and debriefing phases of training, considering how the social and material resources in the simulator environment organize the learning activities. As highlighted by Button et al (2015), Suchman showed that instructions are always accountable in action, occasioned by and contingent on realizing them.…”

Operating theatre nurse specialist competence to ensure patient safety in the operating theatre: A discursive paper

“…Communication in surgical teams affects safety in surgery, and a misunderstanding may put the patient's life at stake. It is comparable to the specific demands of the communication between the members of the crew in the cockpit of an aircraft, where the safety of the passengers may be at stake, or in a nuclear plant, where a communication error may lead to a life‐threatening situation for the population (Chrichton, ). It is easy to understand that such workplaces require competent professionals capable of communicating in a safe mode using words explicitly understood by everyone in the team for safety and to avoid fatal errors.…”

“…To enhance safe care and to reduce adverse events, it is essential that both technical and non‐technical skills are performed in the OT (Mitchell et al, ). Safe care in the OT is dependent on mutual understanding of specific concepts in communication among everyone in the team (Chrichton, ). Communication in surgical teams affects safety in surgery, and a misunderstanding may put the patient's life at stake.…”

The continuum of simulator-based maritime training and education

“…Cambridge University Press ( 2021 ) termed simulation as “a model of a set of problems or events that can be used to teach someone how to do something, or the process of making such a model”. Simulators, as we know them in present day industrial context, have been in use for many years in safety critical industries such as aviation, process, health care, nuclear, maritime, and rail to prepare the personnel in these domains for their job roles and to ensure that they perform optimally as a team in instances of highly stressful situations (Crichton 2017 ). Technological advancement has steadily increased the effectiveness of simulators and brought a wide array of advantages to prospective seafarers, as elaborated and summarized in the following Table 1 .…”