Emerg Med J

OBJECTIVEWe investigated the association between teammate familiarity and workplace injury in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) setting.METHODSWe abstracted a mean of 29-months of shift records and Occupational Safety Health Administration injury logs from 14 EMS organizations with 37 total bases located in four U.S. Census regions. Total teammate familiarity was calculated for each dyad as the total number of times a clinician dyad worked together over the study period. We used negative binomial regression to examine differences in injury incidence rate ratios (IRR) by familiarity.RESULTSWe analyzed 715,826 shift records, representing 4,197 EMS clinicians and 60,701 unique dyads. We determined the mean shifts per dyad was (5.9, SD 19.7), and quartiles of familiarity were 1 shift worked together over the study period, 2\ue2\u20ac\u201c3 shifts, 4\ue2\u20ac\u201c9 shifts, and \ue2\u2030\ua510 shifts worked together. More than half of all dyads worked one shift together (53.9%, n=32,739), 24.8% of dyads 2\ue2\u20ac\u201c3 shifts, 11.8% worked 4\ue2\u20ac\u201c9 shifts, and 9.6% worked \ue2\u2030\ua510 shifts. The overall incidence rate of injury across all organizations was 17.5 per 100 FTE, range 4.7 to 85.6 per 100 FTE. The raw injury rate was 33.5 per 100 FTEs for dyads with one shift of total familiarity, 14.2 for 2\ue2\u20ac\u201c3 shifts, 8.3 for 4\ue2\u20ac\u201c9 shifts, and 0.3 for \ue2\u2030\ua510 shifts. Negative binomial regression confirmed that dyads with \ue2\u2030\ua510 shifts had the lowest incidence of injury (IRR=0.03; 95%CI 0.02\ue2\u20ac\u201c0.04).CONCLUSIONSFamiliarity between teammates varies in the EMS setting, and less familiarity is associated with greater incidence of workplace injury.KL2 TR000146/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United StatesR21 OH010025/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States1R21OH010025-01A1/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States2017-05-23T00:00:00Z26614096PMC544184

Occup Environ Med

ObjectivesEmergency medical services (EMS) clinicians are shift workers deployed in two-person teams. Extended shift duration, workplace fatigue, poor sleep, and lack of familiarity with teammates are common in the EMS workforce and may contribute to workplace injury. We sought to examine the relationship between shift length and occupational injury while controlling for relevant shift work and teamwork factors.MethodsWe obtained three years of shift schedules and occupational injury and illness reports were from 14 large EMS agencies. We abstracted shift length and additional scheduling and team characteristics from shift schedules. We matched occupational injury and illness reports to shift records and used hierarchical logistic regression models to test the relationship between shift length and occupational injury and illness while controlling for teammate familiarity.ResultsThe cohort contained 966,082 shifts, 4,382 employees, and 950 outcome reports. Risk of occupational injury and illness was lower for shifts \ue2\u2030\ua48 hours in duration (RR 0.70; 95% CI 0.51\ue2\u20ac\u201c0.96) compared to shifts >8 & \ue2\u2030\ua412 hours. Relative to shifts >8 & \ue2\u2030\ua412 hours, risk of injury was 60% greater (RR 1.60; 95% CI 1.22\ue2\u20ac\u201c2.10) for employees that worked shifts >16 and \ue2\u2030\ua424 hours.ConclusionsShift length is associated with increased risk of occupational injury and illness in this sample of EMS shift workers.R21 OH010025/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States1R21OH010025-01A1/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States2016-11-01T00:00:00Z26371071PMC468630

Police Dyads Within an Operational Simulation: an Empirical Test of the Research Propositions Made in the “Big Five” Teamwork Approach

Based on the impact of the theoretical big five of teamwork model proposed by Salas et al. (2005), the present study aimed at investigating the model within an operational police simulation. One hundred and sixty-seven frontline police officers participated in the study. Based on path analyses, a reduced model excluding trust and leadership obtained a good fit with the data. The results provided some support for the model by confirming six out of 10 proposed direct effects and four out of seven indirect pathways. Shared mental models directly affected team adaptability, and backup behavior affects adaptability and team effectiveness. Team orientation affects mutual performance monitoring and backup behavior, and finally, reciprocal monitoring affects backup behavior. Monitoring influenced both team effectiveness and adaptability through backup behavior. Two paths from team orientation towards effectiveness were found. One flowing through monitoring and another through back-up behavior. Our study expands former knowledge of the big five theory by empirically testing the totality of the model and identifying important pathways.publishedVersio

Is team resilience more than the sum of its parts?:A quantitative study on emergency healthcare teams during the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency healthcare workers have come under even more pressure than before, threatening the workers’ mental health and the continuity of care delivered by their teams. This study aims to investigate what conditions increase individual and team resilience, referring to the ability to “bounce back” from stressful situations. We also assess whether team resilience is the sum of the individual resilience of team members, or whether other conditions enhance team resilience and thus continuity of care, despite limited individual resilience. We collected survey data from 129 emergency healthcare team members in the Netherlands to examine to what extent transformational leadership and team familiarity influence the level of team resilience, either directly or mediated by individual resilience, accounting for psychological characteristics and social support. The results show two distinct pathways to enhance team resilience, directly by familiarizing team members with each other and by mobilizing family support, and indirectly but with a much weaker effect, by encouraging team members’ individual resilience through transformational leadership and staffing optimistic team members with high levels of self-efficacy

Do Familiar Teammates Request And Accept More Backup? Transactive Memory In Air Traffic Control

Objective: The present study investigated factors that explain when and why different groups of teammates are more likely to request and accept backup from one another when needed in an environment characterized by extreme time pressure and severe consequences of error: commercial air traffic control (ATC). Background: Transactive memory theory states that teammates develop consensus regarding the distribution of their relative expertise as well as confidence in that expertise over time and that this facilitates coordination processes. The present study investigated whether this theory could help to explain between-team differences in requesting and accepting backup when needed. Method: The present study used cross-sectional data collected from 51 commercial ATC teams. Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis. Results: Teammates with greater experience working together requested and accepted backup from one another more than those with lesser experience working together. Teammate knowledge consensus and perceived team efficacy appear to have mediated this relationship. Conclusion: Transactive memory theory extends to high-stress environments in which members\u27 expertise is highly overlapping. Teammates\u27 shared mental models about one another increase the likelihood that they will request and accept backup. Application: Teammate familiarity should be considered when choosing among potential replacement team members. Training strategies that accelerate the development of teammate knowledge consensus and team efficacy are warranted. Copyright © 2009, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Do familiar teammates request and accept more backup? Transactive memory in air traffic control

Objective: The present study investigated factors that explain when and why different groups of teammates are more likely to request and accept backup from one another when needed in an environment characterized by extreme time pressure and severe consequences of error: commercial air traffic control (ATC). Background: Transactive memory theory states that teammates develop consensus regarding the distribution of their relative expertise as well as confidence in that expertise over time and that this facilitates coordination processes. The present study investigated whether this theory could help to explain between-team differences in requesting and accepting backup when needed. Method: The present study used cross-sectional data collected from 51 commercial ATC teams. Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis. Results: Teammates with greater experience working together requested and accepted backup from one another more than those with lesser experience working together. Teammate knowledge consensus and perceived team efficacy appear to have mediated this relationship. Conclusion: Transactive memory theory extends to high-stress environments in which members\u27 expertise is highly overlapping. Teammates\u27 shared mental models about one another increase the likelihood that they will request and accept backup. Application: Teammate familiarity should be considered when choosing among potential replacement team members. Training strategies that accelerate the development of teammate knowledge consensus and team efficacy are warranted. Copyright © 2009, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Do Familiar Teammates Request and Accept More Backup? Transactive Memory in Air Traffic Control

Objective: The present study investigated factors that explain when and why different groups of teammates are more likely to request and accept backup from one another when needed in an environment characterized by extreme time pressure and severe consequences of error: commercial air traffic control (ATC). Background: Transactive memory theory states that teammates develop consensus regarding the distribution of their relative expertise as well as confidence in that expertise over time and that this facilitates coordination processes. The present study investigated whether this theory could help to explain between-team differences in requesting and accepting backup when needed. Method: The present study used cross-sectional data collected from 51 commercial ATC teams. Hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis. Results: Teammates with greater experience working together requested and accepted backup from one another more than those with lesser experience working together. Teammate knowledge consensus and perceived team efficacy appear to have mediated this relationship. Conclusion: Transactive memory theory extends to high-stress environments in which members\u27 expertise is highly overlapping. Teammates\u27 shared mental models about one another increase the likelihood that they will request and accept backup. Application: Teammate familiarity should be considered when choosing among potential replacement team members. Training strategies that accelerate the development of teammate knowledge consensus and team efficacy are warranted

Does backing up behavior explain the efficacy-performance relationship in teams?

Although the relationship between collective efficacy beliefs and team performance has been well-documented, few studies have explored the causal mechanisms that might explain these effects. In the current study, the authors explore the role of backing up behavior, a specific form of teamwork behavior, in explaining why high efficacy beliefs lead to high levels of team performance. Participants were 416 undergraduate business students who were organized into 104 four-person teams. The teams worked on an interdependent, computerized, decision-making task. Results of the study revealed that collective efficacy beliefs were positively related to team performance and that backing up behaviors largely mediated these effects. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. © The Author(s) 2011

How Can Authorities Support Distributed Improvisation During Major Crises? A Study of Decision Bottlenecks Arising During Local COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-Out

publishedVersionPaid open acces