Non-Technical Skills (NTS) for enhancing patient safety: achievements and future directions

Problems in team communication and decision making have been implicated in accidents in
high risk industries such as aviation, off shore oil processing, nuclear power generation.
Recognition of the role that breakdowns in communication and teamwork play in patient safety
incidents has led to a plethora of studies in the area of what has come to be widely known as
non-technical skills (NTS); a term initially used in European aviation (1). This has led to
increasing interest in identifying, assessing, training and measuring non-technical skills. Nontechnical
skills are defined as the cognitive and social skills that complement workers’ technical
skills (1). Technical skills are the procedural and clinical skills that healthcare professionals
apply when diagnosing, monitoring and treating patients. Non-technical skills refer to the general
cognitive and social skills that allow them to, among other things, monitor the situation, make
decisions, take a leadership role, communicate and co-ordinate their actions within a team, in order to achieve high levels of safety and efficiency.