Nurse competence in the post-anaesthesia care unit in Sweden: a qualitative study of the nurse’s perspective

Background To enable safe and successful recovery for surgery patients, nurses working in post-anaesthesia care units need competence in postoperative care. No consensus defines what this specific competence includes, and it has not been studied from the perspective of nurses working in post-anaesthesia care units. The aim of this study is twofold: 1) To explore and describe nurses’ perception of the competence needed to work in post-anaesthesia care units. 2) To explore and describe nurses’ perception of what characterizes an expert nurse in post-anaesthesia care units. Methods This qualitative inductive study uses individual interviews. Sixteen nurses were recruited from two post-anaesthesia care units located in different parts of Sweden. Inclusion criteria were nurses employed in the post-anaesthesia care units for ≥1 years. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted; data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results The interview analysis identified six subthemes and three themes. The themes being adaptable in an ever-changing environment and creating safe care represent the overarching meaning of competence required when working as a nurse in a Swedish post-anaesthesia care unit. Nurses must possess various technical and nontechnical skills, which are core competences that are described in the sub-themes. The theme seeing the bigger picture describes the nurse’s perception of an expert nurse in the post-anaesthesia care unit. Conclusions Nurse competence in post-anaesthesia care units entails specific knowledge, acknowledging the patient, and working proactively at a fast pace with the patient and team to provide safe, high-quality care. An expert nurse in post-anaesthesia care units can see the bigger picture, helping share knowledge and develop post-anaesthesia care. The expert competence to see a bigger picture can be used in supervising novices and creating a knowledge base for postgraduate education in order to promote safe, high-quality post-anaesthesia care.

Consensus on Training and Assessment of Competence in Performing Chorionic Villus Sampling and Amniocentesis: An International Delphi Survey

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The aim of this study was to obtain expert consensus on the content of a curriculum for learning chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis (AC) and the items of an assessment tool to evaluate CVS and AC competence. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We used a 3-round iterative Delphi process. A steering committee supervised all processes. Seven international collaborators were identified to expand the breadth of the study internationally. The collaborators invited fetal medicine experts to participate as panelists. In the first round, the panelists suggested content for a CVS/AC curriculum and an assessment tool. The steering committee organized and condensed the suggested items and presented them to the panelists in round 2. In the second round, the panelists rated and commented on the suggested items. The results were processed by the steering committee and presented to the panelists in the third round, where final consensus was obtained. Consensus was defined as support by more than 80% of the panelists for an item. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Eighty-six experts agreed to participate in the study. The panelists represented 16 countries across 4 continents. The final list of curricular content included 12 theoretical and practical items. The final assessment tool included 11 items, systematically divided into 5 categories: pre-procedure, procedure, post-procedure, nontechnical skills, and overall performance. These items were provided with behavioral scale anchors to rate performance, and an entrustment scale was used for the final overall assessment. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> We established consensus among international fetal medicine experts on content to be included in a CVS/AC curriculum and on an assessment tool to evaluate CVS/AC skills. These results are important to help transition current training and assessment methods from a time- and volume-based approach to a competency-based approach which is a key step in improving patient safety and outcomes for the 2 most common invasive procedures in fetal medicine.

The Effect of Educational Intervention on the Improvement of Nontechnical Skills in Circulating Nurses

Background. Nontechnical skills are necessary for clinicians’ safe performance and prevention of errors in the operating room. Educational intervention is a useful way to improve these skills, which are a vital area for improvement. Circulating nurses are surgical team members whose work depends heavily on using nontechnical skills. This study is aimed at assessing the effect of an educational intervention on the improvement of circulating nurses’ nontechnical skills. Methods. This semiexperimental study was conducted on 300 circulating nurses divided into the intervention and no intervention groups each containing 150 participants. The nontechnical skills were assessed using the circulating practitioners’ list of nontechnical skills. Then, the intervention group received training regarding these skills, and the two groups were evaluated again. After all, the data were entered into the SPSS 24 software and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon and Mann–Whitney tests. Furthermore, Kendall’s tau, independent sample t -test, and one-way ANOVA were used for assessment of relationship between median scores and demographics. Results. The results revealed a significant improvement in the scores of all domains of nontechnical skills in the intervention group ( p < 0.05 ). The highest and lowest improvements were observed in teamwork (42%) and situational awareness (16.7%), respectively. After the intervention, the scores of some of the behaviors were still below the average level or were not improved significantly. Conclusions. Circulating nurses’ nontechnical skills can be improved by educational interventions. However, regarding the low scores or no improvements in the scores of some behaviors, other intervention types such as policymaking and correcting the existing hierarchies in the operating room can be useful to complete the educational interventions.

596 Redeployment of Surgical Trainees to Intensive Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evaluation of the Impact on Training and Wellbeing

Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of redeployment of surgical trainees to intensive care units (ICUs) during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of transferrable technical and nontechnical skills and wellbeing. Method This was a survey study consisting of a 23-point questionnaire. The study involved senior house officer level surgical trainees that had been redeployed to the (ICU) across all hospitals in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was sent to 90 surgical trainees. Thirty-two trainees responded to the questionnaire and were included in the study results. Results All respondents spent between 4 and 8 weeks working in ICU. Prior to redeployment, 78% of participants had previous experience of ICU or an affiliated specialty, and &gt;90% had attended at least 1 educational course with relevance to ICU. There were statistically significant increases in confidence performing central venous cannulation and peripheral arterial catheterisation (p &lt; 0.05). With regards to clinical skills, respondents reported feeling more confident managing ventilated patients, patients on noninvasive ventilation, dialysis, and circulatory failure patients after working in ICU. Respondents (97%) felt that the experience would be beneficial to their future careers but 53% felt the redeployment had a negative impact on their mental health. Conclusions Redeployment of surgical trainees to ICU led to increased confidence in a number of technical and nontechnical skills. However, proactive interventions are needed for training surgeons with regard to their psychological wellbeing in these extraordinary circumstances and to improve workforce planning for future pandemics.

Investigating the role of Non-Technical Skills in Railway Traffic Operations through Expert Knowledge Elicitation

Many high-risk industries identify non-technical skills as safety-critical abilities of the operational staff that have a protective function against human fallibility. Based on an established non-technical skills classification system, methods for expert knowledge elicitation were used to describe non-technical skills in the specific context of train traffic control in the Netherlands. The findings offer insights regarding the skill importance for good operational outcomes, skill difficulty, categorization, and attitudes based on subject matter experts’ opinions. Substantial overlap between the employed non-technical skills framework and the observed expert classification was found, which might indicate that the experts utilize a mental model of nontechnical skills similar to the one used. Furthermore, considerations concerning the organizational culture and the attitudes towards change provide a promising outlook when introducing novel solutions to non-technical skill training and assessment.