Crisis Resource Management: Where Aviation and Medicine Intersect

Safety and teamwork are second nature for pediatric providers, as well as in the airline industry. In medicine, we have long looked to aviation as a leader in the application of crisis response through their risk-reducing strategy known as crew resource management.

Both aviation and medical professionals recognize that even the most experienced professionals are vulnerable to human error — but in both fields, we can rely on problem-solving strategies to optimize our response to critical incidents.

Medical and aviation experts discuss how crisis response principles used in the airline industry can apply to medicine, a strategy known as crisis resource management (CRM) within the medical industry.

Listen to experts discuss crisis resource management:

In this episode Robert Bishop, MD, Robert Strickland and Carlos Porges, PsyD join us to discuss the collaborative work between physicians at Children's Hospital Colorado and human factors and pilot development leaders at United Airlines.

Dr. Bishop is a pediatric cardiac intensive care specialist. He is Director of In-situ Simulation Program at the Children's Colorado Heart Institute.

Robert Strickland is Senior Manager of Human Factors and Pilot Development at United Airlines.

Dr. Porges is a neuropsychologist, Boeing 757/767 pilot and member of the Human Factors and Development team at United Airlines.

In this episode, our experts discuss:

• How Children’s Colorado began collaborating with United Airlines
• How seminal aviation accidents led to a unified crew resource management (CRM) strategy that enables crew members to identify and recover from mistakes before they become adverse events
• How aviation CRM strategies were adopted by the medical field
• Examples of threats that can be managed within a CRM framework
• How CRM addresses cognitive overload
• Differences in the way the fields of aviation and medicine approach simulation training
• The expectations for simulation training and CRM proficiency at United Airlines
• How the partnership between Children’s Colorado and United is advancing CRM training in medicine
• How to use key words to communicate concern and respond to critical incidents in a CRM context

Resources for providers:

• Crisis Resource Management in Medicine: A Clarion Call for Change, Current Treatment Options in Pediatrics
• Crisis Resource Management in Medicine: A Clarion Call for Change (Video)