Video task analysis in high performance teams

A task-specific video recording effort at a trauma centre was studied. Task analysis methodology and an expert review of videos was used to access cognitive aspects of work and performance. Data collection included questionnaires and video reviews that used a template approach to task analysis and audio recordings of the experts “think aloud” performance assessment. Among 48 video records of airway management, performance deficiencies were identified including communication failures, omission of preparatory and confirmatory checks and lack of patient vital signs monitoring that lessened the margin of patient safety and caused a life-threatening critical incident. The analysis of aggregate data from multiple such videos of airway management allowed detection of the performance problems and development of an equipment design change and a task/communication training algorithm. The performance improvement and the lessons learned from using video as data in a medical domain are described. Targeted video task analysis with expert review may be generalisable to other medical procedures and non-medical domains.