Consenting non-technical skills in chronic care healthcare professionals: applying health consensus in collective self-assessment

Abstract

Our ageing populations have changed the epidemiology our health care services currently face. Chronic care, complex and frail patients require a different care approach based on preventive activities and care follow-up by multidisciplinary teams. Healthcare has been traditionally based in face-to-face encounters between the patient and the healthcare provider. Collaboration of healthcare professionals remained for those activities such as emergencies and surgical procedures. This is probably the reason why the first taxonomies of non-technical skills came out from the specialties of anesthetics and surgery (Fletcher et al 2003; Flin and Maran 2004; Yule et al 2008). Non-technical skills are the set of interpersonal and cognitive skills complementary to clinical technical skills. It encompasses competences such as communication, teamwork, leadership, decision- making or situational awareness. A first approach to non-technical skills for healthcare professionals responsible of delivering care services and health maintenance was developed recently in Spain in the context of home care for chronic patients (Escarrabill et al 2014)