Current Projects at the Centre for Medical and Health Sciences Education 2022

NetworkZ is a national team training intervention programme for healthcare multidisciplinary teams. The goal is to improve the safety and efficiency of care for patients. The programs are funded by ACC and the National Trauma Network, delivered by the University of Auckland, and supported by the Health Quality and Safety Commission.

Please visit the NetworkZ website to find out more.

Key publications:

Long, J.A., Webster, C.S., Holliday, T., Torrie, J., & Weller, J. M. (2021). Latent Safety Threats and Countermeasures in the Operating Theater. Simulation in Healthcare: The Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, Publish Ahead of Print(00).

Long, J., Jowsey, T., Garden, A., Henderson, K., & Weller, J. (2020). The flip side of speaking up: a new model to facilitate positive responses to speaking up in the operating theatre. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 125(6), 1099-1106

Weller, J., Cumin, D., Torrie, J., Boyd, M., Civil, I...Merry, A. Multidisciplinary operating room simulation-based team training to reduce treatment errors: a feasibility study in New Zealand hospitals. New Zealand Medical Journal. 2015: 128, 1418; 40-51. Retrieved from https://www.nzma.org.nz

Patient safety is a central principle in all of healthcare. However, as healthcare systems and technologies become more complex, ensuring appropriate levels of patient safety can become more challenging. Better understanding the nature of complex systems and the perceptions of patients allows insight in to how things go wrong, and offers opportunities to redesign systems to make them safer.

Key publications

Webster CS, Henderson R, Merry AF. Sustainable quality and safety improvement in healthcare: further lessons from the aviation industry. Br J Anaesth. 2020 Oct;125(4):425-429. doi: 10.1016/j.bja.2020.06.045. Epub 2020 Jul 15. PMID: 32682551.

Webster CS, Weller JM. Data visualisation and cognitive ergonomics in anaesthesia and healthcare. Br J Anaesth. 2021 May;126(5):913-915. doi: 10.1016/j.bja.2021.01.009. Epub 2021 Feb 13. PMID: 33589230.

Webster CS. (2017) Checklists, cognitive aids, and the future of patient safety. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 119, 178–81. DOI: 10.1093/bja/aex193.

Workplace-based assessments should provide a reliable judgement of trainee performance, but have met with mixed success. In a series of studies, we developed an entrustability scale, where supervisors scored trainees on the level of supervision required, as opposed to the level of expected performance, to improve the utility and reliability of mini-clinical evaluation exercise (CEX) assessments. 

Key publications

Weller, J. M., Castanelli, D. J., Chen, Y., & Jolly, B. (2017). Making robust assessments of specialist trainees' workplace performance. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 118(2), 207-214. DOI: 10.1093/bja/aew412.

Castanelli, D. J., Jowsey, T., Chen, Y., & Weller, J. M. (2016). Perceptions of purpose, value, and process of the mini-clinical evaluation exercise in anesthesia training. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, 63(12), 1345-1356. DOI: 10.1007/s12630-016-0740-9.

Weller, J. M., Misur, M., Nicolson, S., Morris, J., Ure, S., Crossley, J., & Jolly, B. (2014). Can i leave the theatre? A key to more reliable workplace-based assessment. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 112(6), 1083-1091. DOI: 10.1093/bja/aeu052.

Sleep quality and sleep education

Supported by an EW Sharman award for curriculum development this research investigates the sleep of medical students and seeks to explore associations with clinical performance and wellbeing. The research also looks at the sleep education received by medical students.

Publications

Meaklim H, Jackson ML, Bartlett D, Saini B, Falloon K et al. Sleep education for healthcare providers: Addressing deficient sleep in Australia and New Zealand. Sleep Health. 2020;6(5):636-650.

Falloon K, Bhoopatkar H, Moir F, Nakatsuji M, Wearn M. Sleep well to perform well: the association between sleep quality and medical student performance in a high-stakes clinical assessment. SLEEP Advances. 2022;3(1):1-8.

This project applies ethnographic methods to look closely at communication in clinical environments. The goal is to identify how and what health care professionals learn to communicate with one another in clinical environments. Methods include time-condensed ethnography, film and audio analysis, and ethnographic documentary film. Presently we are researching the communication learning that occurs during UIPC week at the University of Auckland; a simulation and learning activities course offered to paramedicine, nursing, pharmacy and medical students.

https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/fmhs/news-events/multimedia-galleries/prepared-to-care.html

Key publications

Jowsey, T., Yu, T-C., Ganeshanantham, G... & Weller, J. Ward calls not so scary for medical students after interprofessional simulation course: a mixed-methods cohort evaluation study. BMJ Simulation & Technology Enahanced Learning. 2018. DOI: 10.1136/bmjstel-2017-000257.

Sheehan, D., Jowsey, T., Parwaiz, M., Birch, M., Seaton, P., Shaw, S., Duggan, A. and Wilkinson, T. (2017), Clinical learning environments: place, artefacts and rhythm. Medical Education, 51: 1049–1060. DOI: 10.1111/medu.13390.

Jowsey, T., Skilton, C., Dennis, S., Weller, J. M. Structured team communication in a simulated operation: an ethnographic approach. Internal Medicine Review. July 2016: 1-11. DOI: 10.18103/imr.v0i5.101.