Medical emergency team training: needs assessment, feedback and learning objectives

Background: There are no published studies assessing learning needs and attitudes prior to attending a medical emergency team (MET) education programme.

Aims: To conduct a learning needs assessment of MET education programme participants to assess what technical and non-technical skills should be incorporated.

Methods: All participants in a MET education programme over a 12-month period were invited to complete a self-administered electronic survey. Participants were ICU team members (intensive care registrars and nurses) and medical registrars. Responses were captured through a 5-point Likert scale.

Results: There were 62 responses out of 112 participants (55% response rate). Most participants either agreed or strongly agreed that MET training was valuable (59 respondents) and should be multidisciplinary (61 respondents). ICU team members were more likely to select 'Management of End-of-Life Care' (72% compared with only 16% of medical registrars, P < 0.05) as an important learning objective. Non-technical skills such as 'Task Management' (67% compared with 37%, P < 0.05) and 'Team Communication' (79% compared with 32%, P < 0.05) were also more likely to be selected by ICU team members. Nursing team members were more likely to select 'Approach to Common MET Calls' (100% compared with 50% of medical team members, P < 0.05).

Conclusions: MET education programme participants overwhelmingly feel that training should be multidisciplinary. However, there are disparities between the perceived learning needs of medical and nursing personnel, and between intensive care team members and medical registrars, which may impact on the design and implementation of a multidisciplinary education programme.