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Operations & systems
Turning HEMS debriefs into shared learning
Coffee and cases (C&C) – perceptions of helicopter emergency medical service teams towards a quality improvement project aimed at enhancing organisational learning from team debriefs: A qualitative focus group study
Paramedicine · 2026-11-03 · Added 4 November 2026
Focus groups with 30 HEMS clinicians found a quality improvement project capturing routine debriefs ('Coffee and Cases') strengthened organisational learning through three themes: education, accessibility and calibration of learning points.
- Study type
- Qualitative
- Design
- Qualitative descriptive study, four semi-structured focus groups
- Participants
- 30 HEMS clinicians in 4 focus groups
- Main finding
- Organisational learning was the global theme, organised into education (knowledge generation, engagement, incidental learning), accessibility (learning reaching staff who missed debriefs) and calibration (moderation and vetting of learning points)
- Caveat
- Single-service perceptions with no measure of whether learning outcomes actually changed
- Bottom line
- Hypothesis-generating
Why it matters in Australia (Medium relevance). It comes from a helicopter crew model, but the underlying problem — debrief learning evaporating unless it's captured and shared — applies to any Australian ambulance service.
Learning goal
Understand how routine team debriefs can be captured and calibrated to strengthen organisational learning in my practice.
More
- Topic: Operations & systems
- Daily scan: 4 November 2026
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