Doctors use Formula One pit crews as safety model

Hospitals are learning to translate the timing and synchronization of auto racing teams to the handoffs of patients from surgery to recovery.

By KEVIN B. O'REILLY, amednews staff. Posted Oct. 4, 2010.

First it was aviation, then the Toyota assembly line. Now physicians are looking to auto-racing pit crews for ways to improve health care quality and patient safety.

Hospitals in at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., are learning how to translate the split-second timing and near-perfect synchronization of Formula One pit crews to the high-risk handoffs of patients from surgery to recovery and intensive care. The racing crews can refuel a car and change all four tires in seven seconds, and no F1 driver has died at the wheel in a Grand Prix race since 1994.

The key lessons physicians, nurses and other health professionals can get from these well-honed teams is how to use briefings and checklists to prevent errors, apply technology to transfer key information and learn afterward by mining data, according to a recent study published in the British medical journal Quality and Safety in Health Care. The findings were based on structured interviews with the technical managers of nine F1 racing teams./.../