While checklists are effective at reducing patient harm, the available evidence suggests some staff recalled as few as 30% of other staff’s names after the WHO recommended Team-Time-Out process. Ĭhecklists and formal introductions have been advocated to address these problems. These problems are perceived as reducing effective communication during surgery. It is known that surgical team members often do not know the names of people they are working with, particularly if the person rarely attends the operating theatre or is of a lower perceived status, and that this deficit can contribute to team dysfunction. Good team behaviors were associated with greater satisfaction at work and better patient safety outcomes. One of the features of highly functioning teams is that team members address each other using their first names, and that tasks are allocated to a specific person, rather than to the generic “someone” in the room. Even when staff have worked together previously, the rapid changeover of staff and fact that hundreds of personnel may work in the theatre department means that situations frequently arise in which staff do not know the names of everyone working in the theatre. Teams in operating theatres are often large and include people who may have met for the first time at the start of the operating list. Directing communication to a specific staff member appears to improve team function. Good team communication during surgery has been linked to improved team function. Clinical incidents are common, and often occur due to poor communication between surgical team members. Team members knowing and using each other’s names leads to better communication and is a recognised component of good team function, particularly in the event of clinical crisis. In this study, we found that wearing caps displaying name and role appeared to improve perceived teamwork and improve communication between staff members working in the operating theatre. The reported rate of formal team introductions was not significantly different after the intervention (34.7% vs 47.7% p = 0.058). Participants reported knowing the names of all staff members present in the theatre more frequently after the intervention (31% vs 15%, p < 0.001). The median number of staff members in theatre that a participant did not know the name of reduced from three to two ( p < 0.001).
In a pre-planned subgroup analysis, the median perceived teamwork score rose for midwives from three to four ( p < 0.001), while for other craft groups remained similar. The median perceived teamwork response of four did not change after the intervention, though the number of low scores was reduced ( p = 0.015). Of 236 enrolled participants, 107 (45%) completed both the pre and post intervention surveys. The primary outcome was a change in perceived teamwork score, measured using a five position Likert scale. Participants included medical practitioners (anaesthetists, surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists), nurses (anaesthetic, scrub/scout and paediatric nurses), midwives and theatre technicians. A pilot project was designed as a pre-/post-implementation questionnaire sent to 236 operating room staff members at a general hospital in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, between November 6 to December 18, 2018. We hypothesized that the implementation of scrub hats with individual team members' names and roles would improve the perceived quality and effectiveness of communication in the operating theatre. The use of theatre caps to display a staff member’s name and role has been suggested to improve communication and teamwork. Many operating theatre staff do not know each other’s name, even after formal team introductions. A foundational requirement for teamwork is the ability to communicate effectively, and in particular, knowing each other’s name. Teamwork in the operating theatre is a complex emergent phenomenon and is driven by cooperative relationships between staff.
0 kommentar(er)
