Knowledge and application of non-technical skills (NTS) may represent the greatest challenge facing medical education today. For centuries, medical education focused on developing individual clinical knowledge and technical skills. But, the modern complexities of healthcare delivery and rapid expansion of medical knowledge necessitate a high-functioning team approach, which requires human factors engineering and NTS to operate effectively.

Other complex high-risk industries—like aviation, oil drilling, nuclear power and the military—have aligned their educational systems to match.1–3 While certain healthcare disciplines have developed frameworks to ensure the acquisition and maintenance of clinical and technical skills, no standard framework for NTS exists. With the increasing computational support for clinical and technical skills—decision aids, predictive algorithms, robotic surgery and image interpretation—the true added value of human clinicians may lie with their mastery of NTS.. To read the full article, log in using your NHS OpenAthens details.