IT, Situation Awareness, and Non-Technical Skills in Cardiac Arrest Teams

Abstract

Technical skills are important for providing efficient treatment of in-hospital cardiac arrests. Nevertheless, research shows that non-technical skills and situation awareness are central to improving quality of care. This study reveals that IT plays a large role in establishing and maintaining situation awareness in cardiac arrest teams. On the one hand, IT allows team members to establish situation awareness. On the other hand, IT draws attention away from the situation, thus negatively impacting situation awareness. Furthermore, this study reveals that non-technical skills are important as they enable effective use of IT and mitigate the negative impact of IT on situation awareness. The impact of IT represents a significant contribution to situation awareness theory, which is discussed along with implications for practice.