Improving Teamwork for Neonatal Resuscitation

Crew Resource Management (CRM) is an aviation training program mandated for all crew members that teaches human factors concepts, communication skills, and teamwork behaviors that can prevent and manage error. Over the last six years the study team has translated these behaviors to neonatal resuscitation and demonstrated that they can be reliably measured. Adding teamwork instruction to the existing NRP, based upon CRM, may be a method to improve communication, teamwork, and the overall quality of neonatal resuscitation.

The existing NRP course, taught to most caregivers in the United States who care for newborns, focuses on teaching the technical aspects of neonatal resuscitation with little attention paid to communication and teamwork.

SimBaby mannequins (Laerdal Medical Corp, Stavanger, Norway) were used in the high-fidelity skills stations. These mannequins have simulated heart tones, breath sounds, pulses, and cries.