Martin Egerth
Lufthansa Flight Training, Germany
Title: Why do we need more than technical and procedural competencies in the medical industry to improve patient safety
Biography
Biography: Martin Egerth
Abstract
Between 500 and 1,000 people die every year in plane crashes worldwide. Despite this seemingly high number, the number of
preventable deaths annually as a result of medical errors is far greater. Patients die daily due to human errors committed by
doctors, nurses and hospital staff. Why then is there such a great emphasis on rules, regulations and standardized simulations
and trainings in the aviation industry, but not in the medical sector? How do we define safety and how can we continuously
improve this notion? What similarities and differences exist between the aviation and medical industries and what can medical
professionals learn from the established human factors and safety trainings already in place for pilots, flights attendants and
non-flying staff. And what can aviation learn from medicine? A clear distinction is that trainings in aviation industry focus
not only on technical and procedural competencies, but also interpersonal and personal skills. Interpersonal and personal
skills must be strengthened for those working with or on patients and a safety culture needs to be introduced. This will result
in proper error management, a positive working environment and ultimately less patients dying due to staff fatigue, a lack of
assertiveness and hierarchy. Lufthansa Flight Training and the German Society of Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery (DGOU)
have implemented a new trainings philosophy to strengthen interpersonal and personal competencies. From basic trainings
to leadership trainings to assessments in the surgery room, this philosophy encompasses a broad implementation of human
factors. The overarching goal is to make hospitals safer and to improve overall patient safety. During these training, strategies to
combat complacency and fatigue are introduced, incidents are openly discussed and risk assessment is fine-tuned. Additionally,
the trainings focus on improving communication within the team, providing decision making tools and making individuals
aware of their own strength and weaknesses. This speech will emphasize the importance of human factors trainings for the
medical sector. It will stress that human factor trainings must not only continue to develop in terms of subject matter and
training methods, but continue to be an integral part of a hospital’s strategy regardless of how safe current operations are. It
will critically examine the current methods used in human factors trainings to see what needs to be done preemptively to adapt
to the requirements of future generations of trainees and of the medical industry in general. It will highlight the importance
of thinking creatively and outside of the box to push human factors trainings of the future and patient safety standards. New
research results of these trainings and the effects will be presented.