Emergency Medicine Supportive Supervision Tools
What is Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care?
The Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care tool is designed to facilitate the process of supportive supervision in clinicians and staff members responsible for delivering emergency care in resource-constrained settings. Supportive supervision has been described as being about “helping to make things work, rather than checking to see what is wrong” and is a facilitative approach to supervision that promotes mentorship, joint problem-solving and open, two-way communication between supervisors and supervisees. The tools included encourage clinicians and supervisors to build team-focused approaches that facilitate problem-solving. By shifting the focus of performance monitoring toward shared goals and using data for decision-making, rather than punitive reaction, supportive supervision takes a different tack to performance improvement.
Why use Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care?
The elements of the Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care tool allow the supervisor to have structured guidance in recording observations and feedback, tagged to the five domains encompassing the sentinel functions of acute care provision. Understanding that emergency medicine is a relatively new speciality in many places, the supervision systems that exist may not be fit for purpose in evaluating the skills and functions of clinicians and staff members working in emergency care. These supportive supervision tools fill this gap and allow supervisors to have the right tools to do the job.
Will Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care work for me?
Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care has been piloted in the Upper East region of Ghana and is concise, specific and simple, focused on only the highest yield functions of emergency care. The tool allows supervisors, regardless of their background or the strength of their understanding of the specialty to watch, problem-solve and provide on-the-job feedback for emergency health workers.
What are the domains of Supportive Supervision for Emergency Care?
There are five domains that encompass the sentinel functions of acute care provision covered by this tool. Domain 1 of supportive supervision is Emergency Patient Care, focused on evaluating the quality of clinical care given to patients with priority acute and emergency conditions through checklists allowing focused observation of common clinical scenarios. Domain 2 is Acute Care Data Management, where supervisors will evaluate the quality of data management practices for patients seen in the emergency unit (EU) as a sentinel function. Domain 3 focuses on Human Resources for Health in the EU, aware that the quality of clinical care given to patients in the EU is, in part, based upon the physical presence and availability of expected staff in emergency unit and the training/knowledge of those staff. Domain 4 focuses on Logistics & Resources for Emergencies, as the availability and adequacy of critical elements of a resource list delineating medications, commodities, equipment and/or funds required to deliver emergency care also impact care quality. The final domain, Acute Care Processes evaluates the quality of clinical care given to patients in the emergency unit based on utilities and barriers to care