Worth A Look: Interactive Training

Emergency room clinicians are trained to handle a multitude of medical conditions that range from the life-threatening to downright bizarre. But dealing with angry, even physically hostile, patients? Delivering heartbreaking news to family members? Apologizing? Many physicians, nurses and other ER personnel undergo considerably less training in the caregiver-patient interactions that are a crucial component of patient safety.

If you think your ER team members could benefit from a little tuneup in customer relations, a video series from Knoxville, Tenn.-based clinical and administrative outsourcing provider TeamHealth (www.teamhealth.com) might be worth exploring. Patient Safety Fables, offered as a component of TeamHealth’s package of patient safety initiatives, features video vignettes of simulated clinician-patient encounters, tracking patients throughout the ER process. The stories illustrate both positive and negative interactions and aim to demonstrate how such interactions can be improved to enhance patient safety and mitigate risk.

—Jay Moore