Improved Staff Procedure Skills Lead to Improved Management Skills: An Observational Study in an Educational Setting

Introduction: Good staff procedure skills in a management group during incidents and disasters are believed to be a prerequisite for good management of the situation. However, this has not been demonstrated scientifically. Templates for evaluation results from performance indicators during simulation exercises have previously been tested. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the possibility that these indicators can be used as a tool for studying the relationship between good management skills and good staff procedure skills. Hypothesis: Good and structured work (staff procedure skills) in a hospital management group during simulation exercises in disaster medicine is related to good and timely decisions (good management skills). Methods: Results from 29 consecutive simulation exercises in which staff procedure skills and management skills were evaluated using quantitative measurements were included. The statistical analysis method used was simple linear regression with staff procedure skills as the response variable and management skills as the predictor variable. Results: An overall significant relationship was identified between staff procedure skills and management skills (p ≤0.05). Conclusions: This study suggests that there is a relationship between staff procedure skills and management skills in the educational setting used. Future studies are needed to demonstrate if this also can be observed during actual incidents. Ruter A, Vikstrom T: Improved staff procedure skills lead to improved management skills: An observational study in an educational setting. Prehosp Disaster Med 2009;24(5):376–379. Faculty of Health Science, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Centre for Teaching and Research in Disaster Medicine and Traumatology, Linköping,