Clarification of training items for novice staff related to their judgments during hemodialysis treatment - Based on visualizing expert medical staff judgments

Medical safety is one of the most important and basic concerns of medical services. For instance, in clinical hemodialysis, medical staff are expected to notice problems or abnormalities when the patient is undergoing medical treatment, such as falling blood pressure, and to deal with any abnormality appropriately. Experienced medical staff are able to promptly notice an abnormality and take appropriate countermeasures quickly, and they can provide safe service. Such actions are, however, based on specific knowledge obtained through their long-time experiences, and such knowledge seems sometimes like being held in a black-box as know-how. This becomes one of the educational problems of novice staff during hemodialysis treatment. Therefore, for the sake of educating novice staff, this study focused on the process of taking judgments which are difficult for novices and clarifying the points for which novices should be trained. By clarifying the reason why these judgments are difficult for novices, this study also revealed the training items for novice staff as related to their judgments during hemodialysis treatment. These training items show the insufficient skills of novices. Experts of hemodialysis treatment, who work in a certain university hospital, evaluated these items to be useful for education. This approach diminishes the skill gap between experts and novices. Therefore, we believe it is applicable in a variety of service sites with educational problems similar to those in the case of hemodialysis treatment.