Team Resource Management (TRM) and Threat and Error Management (TEM) are critical to effective communication and teamwork not just in the operating room. but by all teams throughout the hospital. Simply put, TRM is the effective use of all resources including hardware, software, and people to achieve the highest possible level of safety in clinical care processes. We at The Salus Network have developed a learning program applicable to all healthcare personnel. Developed as both a “lens” and a “toolkit”, TRM is designed to make better sense of your workplace.  We view the workplace through the “lens” in order to understand why things happen and we use a “toolkit” in order to help you function more effectively in that workplace.

Our TRM program is predicated on the primer Authority with Participation, Assertiveness with Respect. The concept behind this primer is to increase the efficiency with which healthcare teams interact by focusing on communication skills, teamwork, clinical care task allocation, and decision-making.

Our TRM program utilizes specific “Team Performance Indicators” including:

• Communication
• Team Building
• Workload Management
• Technical Proficiency

We use these “Team Performance Indicators” as error-management pathways to protect against clinical care system and team member threats and errors.

Using TRM as a Threat and Error Management (TEM) tool helps healthcare teams to manage the complexities that exist in healthcare operations so they do not become distractions that cause errors. Critical components of the TEM operating philosophy are verbalization of the clinical care plan by the team leader, verification of the briefed plan by subordinate team members, and effective monitoring of the plan by the entire team. The key to effective monitoring is timely threat/error recognition, threat/error communication, and threat/error resolution. TEM brings the traditional concepts of commercial aviation Crew Resource Management (CRM) to a new level as it more closely defines the roles and expectations of healthcare team members.

TRM / TEM is a critical component to patient safety in any healthcare organization.

For more information contact: