Crew Resource Management in the trauma room: a prospective 3-year cohort study.

Objective: Human factors account for the majority of adverse events. Human factors awareness training entitled Crew Resource Management (CRM) is associated with improved safety and reduced complications and mortality in critically ill patients. We determined the effects of CRM implementation in the trauma room of an Emergency Department (ED).

[How to deal with blast injuries. 15 tips for healthcare providers].

The recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels have made the subject of injuries caused by explosives, also known as 'blast injuries', a very current one. The Netherlands has limited experience with terrorist attacks. This means that Dutch medical care providers possibly do not have sufficient knowledge about dealing with blast injuries.

[Injured soldiers and their quality of life].

This is a commentary on the article entitled 'Dutch military casualties of the war in Afghanistan - Quality of life and level of participation after rehabilitation' by de Kruijff and colleagues, published in the Dutch Journal of Medicine (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, NTvG). The article addresses a very relevant issue: the impact of war injuries on a wounded soldier's recovery, quality of life and level of participation after rehabilitation. The choice was made to compare soldiers wounded during their mission in Uruzgan with the Dutch general trauma population by means of the 'Injury Severity Score' (ISS) and the 'Abbreviated Injury Scale' (AIS) score.

[Doctor, may I travel in space? Aeromedical considerations regarding commercial suborbital space flights].

Within a few years, the first commercial operators will start flying passengers on suborbital flights to the verge of space. Medical data on the effects of space journeys on humans have mainly been provided by professional astronauts. There is very little research into the aeromedical consequences of suborbital flights for the health of untrained passengers.

[Organize quality assurance as in aviation; improve patient safety in Dutch hospitals].

Failing teamwork is a major cause of adverse events in hospitals in the Netherlands. Training team-skills can improve the safety standards in clinical heath care. An adapted version of Crew Resource Management (CRM) training is proving to be a usable format in the hospital environment.