Interprofessional teamwork for managing medical deterioration in pregnancy: what contributes to good clinical performance in simulated practice?

Objectives: To identify the patterns of teamwork displayed by interprofessional teams during simulated management of medical deterioration in pregnancy and examine whether and how they are related to clinical performance in simulated practice.

Design: Exploratory observational cohort study.

Setting: Interprofessional clinical simulation training with scenarios involving the management of medical deterioration in pregnant women.

Participants: Seventeen simulated scenarios involving 62 qualified healthcare staff working within the National Health Service attending clinical simulation training (midwives (n=18), obstetricians (n=24) and medical physicians (n=20)).

Main outcome measures: Teamwork behaviours over time, obtained through detailed observational analysis of recorded scenarios, using the Temporal Observational Analysis of Teamwork (TOAsT) framework. Clinician rated measures of simulated clinical performance.

Results: Scenarios with better simulated clinical performance were characterised by shared leadership between obstetricians and midwives at the start of the scenario, with obstetricians delegating less and midwives disseminating rationale, while both engaged in more information gathering behaviour. Towards the end of the scenario, better simulated clinical performance was associated with dissemination of rationale to the team. More delegation at the start of a scenario was associated with less spontaneous sharing of information and rationale later in the scenario. Teams that shared their thinking at the start of a scenario continued to do so over time.

Conclusions: Teamwork during the opening moments of a clinical situation is critical for simulated clinical performance in the interprofessional management of medical deterioration in pregnancy. Shared leadership and the early development of the shared mental model are associated with better outcomes.