VCU Nurse Anesthesia begins research to understand, promote implementation of crisis resource management principles in anesthesia practice 

The VCU Department of Nurse Anesthesia is starting a research program with their academic and clinical collaborative partners to understand and promote the implementation of crisis resource management principles in anesthesia practice. The research program has been funded by the state grant of Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute, and the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Foundation.  

The practice of anesthesia is complex and dynamic, and the decisions taken by anesthesia professionals are associated with various risks, many of which cannot be anticipated and may lead to adverse patient outcomes. Crisis resource management plays an important role in delivering safe and effective patient care. The overall purpose of these funded projects is to understand and promote the implementation of crisis resource management principles in anesthesia practice.

Medical error has been identified as one of the leading causes of patient adverse outcomes or even deaths in the country. Multiple studies found more than 80 percent of medical errors are related to non-technical skills (i.e., cognitive and interpersonal behaviors) of health care professionals. Crisis resource management (CRM) is a set of non-technical skills needed to effectively manage all available resources at hand to execute the care as planned and respond to problems that arise.

Since 1999, the VCU CHP Department of Nurse Anesthesia has provided a simulation-based CRM training program to more than 700 nurse anesthesia graduate students and more than 70 Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists in the Center for Research in Human Simulation and provided six onsite CRM simulation training workshops to interprofessional perioperative teams in Virginia health institutes.