ABSTRACT
Teamwork is a fundamental component of high-reliability organizations. The provision of safe and quality care frequently requires the coordination of a diverse set of skilled professionals. However, the education and training of healthcare providers is usually conducted along disciplinary lines, and real interaction of professionals does not occur until on the job performance. Consequently, the skills needed to ensure etTective coordination among care providers are not developed in a systematic way but left to develop haphazardly if at all. This represents a real problem for creating and sustaining the changes in culture and competence required to transform healthcare into a high reliability industry (To Err is Human). This paper attempts to address this issue by providing a Human Factors perspective for incorporating non-technical skills into medical education programs from the earliest stages and through life-long learning.
