Understanding communications in medical emergency situations

TL;DR

This paper examines communication issues in medical emergency teams during CPR, proposing an agent-based simulation architecture to improve team coordination and reduce errors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel architecture combining situation awareness and BDI models for simulating communication in CPR teams.

Findings

Identifies key communication problems in CPR scenarios.

Develops an agent-based simulator for testing communication protocols.

Provides insights into improving emergency team coordination.

Abstract

Good communication is essential within teams dealing with emergency situations. In this paper we look at communications within a resuscitation team performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. Communication underpins efficient collaboration, joint coordination of work, and helps to construct a mutual awareness of the situation. Poor communication wastes valuable time and can ultimately lead to life-threatening mistakes. Although training sessions frequently focus on medical knowledge and procedures, soft skills, such as communication receive less attention. This paper analyses communication problems in the case of CPR and proposes an architecture that merges a situation awareness model and the belief-desire-intention (BDI) approach in multi-agent systems. The architecture forms the basis of an agent-based simulator used to assess communication protocols in CPR teams.