Safer Surgery 274 recommended dened triggers that mandate communication with an attending surgeon; structured hand-offs and transfer protocols; and standard use of read- backs. Our work complements these studies by specifying the intra-operative team behaviours (briengs, information sharing, inquiry and vigilance) that should be useful in preventing negative outcomes. Finally, a recent study reported a signicant correlation between subjective ratings of teamwork with postoperative morbidity (Davenport et al. 2007), a nding which lends more support to our conclusions. Implications and Future Directions Development of interventions based on changing teamwork behaviour and their evaluation is a logical next step for research in this arena. Our study provides general support for development of team training programmes for surgical teams. Such programmes should be rigorously tested because they will require signicant investments of time and money; some studies in other areas have found only marginal benet for patients (Nielsen et al. 2007). We believe that there are two broad lines of research that should be pursued and that will ultimately converge in the form of effective team training programmes. First, research should focus on implementation and evaluation of training programmes. There is already a large body of knowledge that can inform the content of such programmes (Baker et al. 2005, Clancy and Tornberg 2007). These may focus on relatively specic processes of care, like neonatal resuscitation (Thomas et al. 2006); they may try to address multiple processes within a site of care like labour and delivery (Nielsen et al. 2007); or there are training programmes (like TeamSTEPPS) which may be applicable across many locations, processes and disciplines (Clancy and Tornberg 2007). However, given the inconclusive results of initial evaluations of such programmes, it is clear that there is a need for a second line of research which asks more fundamental questions about the relationships between specic team behaviours and specic tasks carried out by providers (Undre et al. 2006, Yule et al. 2006). Such knowledge should result in training that teaches behaviours which are more likely to improve quality. This would include studies that draw upon the ‘basic sciences’ of safety (Brennan et al. 2005). For example, human factors experts can perform task analyses to determine exactly which behaviours might be most useful for specic tasks, and cognitive psychologists can help link teamwork to prevention of mental slips and mistakes. At Kaiser Permanente we are implementing a comprehensive surgical safety programme (described below) which is an example of how these two lines of research can inform the development and implementation of team training programmes. At the University of Texas we have developed a team training curriculum for the Neonatal Resuscitation Program which increases the frequency of team behaviours during simulated resuscitations (Thomas et al. 2007). The Kaiser programme was a direct outgrowth of the research described above and is described in more detail below. An Empiric Study of Surgical Team Behaviours and Patient Outcomes 275 From Science to Execution – Implementation of a Highly Reliable Surgical Team Programme at Kaiser Permanente The primary driver of the research described above was to develop strategies to continually improve the safety of the care that we provide to our patients. The secondary driver was to answer the question of whether or not the communication and teamwork demonstrated by the surgical team had an impact on surgical outcomes. Prior to performing this research our patient safety strategy for the peri- operative area had focused on education and training related to human factors, communication and teamwork and implementation of structured pre-operative briengs. Based on this work, a pilot project was performed in the operating rooms of one of our Southern California hospitals. The overarching purpose of the project was to improve safety by enhancing teamwork, collaboration and communication among team members in the peri-operative setting. The pilot consisted of providing education and training in human factors and communication and teamwork to the entire peri-operative staff. Following the educational programme, a steering committee was formed and a structured pre- operative brieng (including script) was developed. The hospital used four different indicators of safety culture to measure the programme’s success: occurrence of wrong site/wrong procedures, attitudinal survey data, near-miss reporting and turnover data. Several areas of signicant improvement were noted. The most notable result was reducing verication injuries to zero within a year; additionally, there was a 19 percent increase in employee satisfaction and a 16 percent decrease in nurse turnover; and the safety climate in the operating room increased from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ after implementation of the pilot study. Although this pilot programme was successful and has sustained itself as an ongoing programme at the one hospital, the efforts to spread the programme to other hospitals were not successful. One of the major concerns expressed by leadership and clinicians was that the data did not demonstrate that the effort put into communication and teamwork and pre-operative briengs made a difference to surgical outcomes. The evidence base provided by the Highly Reliable Surgical Team (HRST) research project discussed above, coupled with the outcomes of the pilot programme, provided us with a much stronger case for requiring a highly reliable surgical programme in all of our hospitals. The HRST research project also had a qualitative component (narratives of observations provided by the observers) that allowed us to provide leadership and clinicians with information related to potential threats to patient safety that existed within our system. The primary ‘threats’ included: interruptions and distractions; inadequate brieng and/or time out; incomplete or no transfer of information during transfer of patient, shift change or break; equipment and material problems including malfunctioning equipment, potential operator error and incomplete or wrong supplies and equipment for the task at hand; lack of respectful interactions among surgical team members; and interdepartmental coordination and communication challenges. These qualitative data enriched the quantitative ndings, and armed with these data, we were able Safer Surgery 276 to convince both leadership and clinicians that improved communication and teamwork including pre-operative briengs would not only improve attitudes but also improve the safety of the surgical care that we provide to our patients. When the data were presented to executive and physician leadership, the consensus was that the combination of the evidence presented a compelling argument for a mandated programme. The information from the research was presented at our initial expert surgical groups that were charged with developing the programme, clinicians who had previously been sceptical and concerned that strategies such as pre-operative briengs would do nothing but slow down procedure start time began to discuss how, in fact, interventions could potentially end up saving time. Once the pilots were initiated we began to receive ‘stories’ from clinicians. An early story shared by a surgeon at a meeting of surgical leaders related to how, during a brieng, it was discovered that the team did not have all the equipment that was needed for the procedure. The surgeon indicated that in the past, not having the correct equipment was in many cases not discovered until a point when the operation was underway. The surgeon went on to say that when missing equipment was not identied early on this not only led to delays in the procedure and increased operating time but also potentially impacted the safety of the patient. In 2007, in conjunction with peri-operative leadership, the Northern California regional leadership required all 19 of the Northern California medical centres to initiate the Highly Reliable Surgical Team Program. Expert groups consisting of surgeons, anaesthesiologists and nurse managers met to develop the programme and in the spring of 2007 a regional surgical summit was held. Peri-operative teams from each medical centre attended. The summit opened with sharing of the results from the research project along with the current state of surgical safety in Northern California (e.g., days in-between surgical events, our medical malpractice experience). Education and training during the summit related to human factors, communication and teamwork, and the importance of the highly reliable surgical team programme. Participants were provided with all of the tools necessary to initiate the programme at their individual medical centres. The expectations for 2007 required that each hospital develop and implement the infrastructure and processes necessary to support highly reliable surgical teams. The four requirements for each medical centre were: Develop and implement a surgical safety committee that would lead the programme. Implement scripted peri-operative briengs where all members of the team had a speaking role. A whiteboard with all team members’ names was also required. Educate and train the entire peri-operative team in human factors/ communication and teamwork – every medical centre closed the operating rooms for 2–3 hours for this training. The training included 1. 2. 3. An Empiric Study of Surgical Team Behaviours and Patient Outcomes 277 presenting national, regional, and medical centre specic data related to surgical safety and set the ‘burning platform’ as to why this programme was important. Additionally, experts in the area of communication and teamwork discussed the importance and fundamentals of human factors, communication, and teamwork. The session ended with planning for how to implement the programme in every operating room for every specialty. Additional elements such as debriengs and ‘glitch books’ were discussed as potential additional programme elements. Institute regular observation audits to ensure that the briengs were taking place and all required elements were included. One of the lessons from our research was the importance of observation by someone not directly involved with the procedure. Often, behaviours in the OR are the reality in which the surgical team works and, digressing from the appropriate or required way of doing things is not recognized. By doing the observational audits and reviewing these with the teams and OR leadership, we are able to point out how the teams can improve the communication and teamwork. The success of the surgical summit exceeded our expectations. Teams remained after the summit to work on plans for implementation in their medical centres. Formal evaluations indicated that 100 percent of the participants found the programme had met its goals and 96 percent felt that the programme met expectations. More convincing evaluations, however, were the anecdotal comments noting that the summit had moved people to take further action to improve surgical safety. Completion of the process requirements outlined above was monitored and quarterly reports were submitted to the medical centre executive committee and regional leadership. All medical centres met the requirement that these four elements be in place by the end of 2007. In addition to the above process measures an outcome measure of days in-between verication injuries was also utilized. The days in-between events related to verication has substantially increased since the inception of the programme. In the latter part of 2007, the requirements were further rened to make the briengs pre-induction, thereby including the patient in the process (when appropriate). The Surgical Care Improvement Project safety checks (Bratzler and Hunt 2006) were added to the brieng checklist to enhance reliable protection from infection, Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) and Miocardial Infarction (MI). Building on the successes achieved in 2007, the programme was expanded in 2008. Each one of the elements required the input from a multidisciplinary expert team whose job was to research current literature, dene recommended practices, perform small test of change and develop tools/playbooks to guide the change in practice. The additional elements included: Renement and monitoring of the surgical brieng and debrieng to build communication, teamwork and eliminate verication events – this included use of the script; team engagement; and leadership of the surgeon. 4. 1. Safer Surgery 278 Administration of the Safety Attitude Questionnaires (Sexton et al. 2006a) to measure the culture of safety and teamwork at each medical centre. Continued monitoring of the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) bundles. Implementation of peri-operative practice changes that will eliminate retained foreign bodies (RFO). Implementation of a brieng protocol specic to intraocular lens implants (IOL) to prevent wrong lens implants in all settings where cataracts are performed. Establish a protocol to eliminate wrong side thoracentesis procedures in all settings. Provide a second surgical summit in the fall to celebrate successes and inspire the operative teams to continue to sustain the programme. In conclusion, the quantitative and qualitative data from our research project were critical to get buy-in and inform the design and implementation of our Highly Reliable Surgical Team programme. The key contributors to the success of this programme have been: Immediate utilization of the Highly Reliable Surgical Team research to develop and implement the programme in all operating rooms in the 19 hospitals of the Northern California Region of Kaiser Permanente. Strong executive and physician leadership. Provision of tools and project management to the medical centres. Independent observational audits of the surgical brieng by staff who are not members of the peri-operative team. Regular dialogue and communication with the peri-operative nursing directors and managers. Development of a surgical safety scorecard measuring compliance rate with the SCIP bundles, brieng elements of script, engagement and leadership and listing of surgical never events by facilities. Future work will expand and rene these efforts for both surgical and non- surgical teams. References Baker, D.P., Gustafson, S., Beaubien, J.M., Salas, E. and Barach, P. (2005) Medical team training programs in health care. Advances in patient safety: From research to implementation. In K. Henriksen, J.B. Battles, E.S. Marks and D.I. Lewin (eds) Vol. 4, Programs, Tools and Products. AHRQ Publication No. 05-0021-2. Rockville, MD: AHRQ. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. An Empiric Study of Surgical Team Behaviours and Patient Outcomes 279 Bratzler, D.W. and Hunt D.R. 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Medical Education 40, 1098–104. Appendix: List of Potential Complications Referred to by Data Abstractors when Reviewing Medical Records This list was not all-inclusive – abstractors recorded additional complications as indicated. Complications were grouped into outcome categories based upon the impact on subsequent care and harm to patients. Accidental puncture or laceration. Surgical burn (heat-producing equipment, chemical). Adverse drug reaction. Wrong patient/procedure/site/side/device. 1. 2. 3. 4. Safer Surgery 282 Retention of foreign object. Transfusion reaction. Pressure ulcers. Peripheral nerve damage/short-term neurological decits. Complications of anaesthesia (anaesthetic medication error, reaction or endotracheal tube misplacement, regional anaesthetic complications, broken teeth). Iatrogenic pneumothorax. Pneumonia. Selected post-operative infections (ICD-9 CM codes 9993 or 00662). Post-operative haemorrhage or haematoma. Post-operative pulmonary embolus or DVT (deep vein thrombosis). Post-operative DIC (disseminating intravascular coagulopathy). Post-operative respiratory failure (acute). Post-operative sepsis. Postoperative wound dehiscence. Post-operative fracture (excluding unrelated post-operative falls). Post-operative physiologic/metabolic derangement. Post-operative cardiac arrest. Post-operative hemodynamic instability. Myocardial infarction. CVA. Other undesired outcome, not otherwise specied (e.g., excessive and prolonged pain, unanticipated restriction in range of motion, musculoskeletal injury). 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. Chapter 17 Counting Silence: Complexities in the Evaluation of Team Communication Lorelei Lingard, Sarah Whyte, Glenn Regehr and Fauzia Gardezi Purpose Many in the domain of surgical performance research have developed tools to objectively evaluate team communication. Our own tool has been used to describe communication failure patterns in the context of a pre-operative team brieng intervention in four urban teaching hospitals. Using examples from this research programme, this chapter explores a critical problem in the objective evaluation of team communication: how do we ‘count’ silence? Because it is relatively easy to document ‘presence’ (communications that can be directly observed), our conventional approaches are not well equipped to deal with ‘absence’ (communicative silences). Yet silence abounds in the operating room, and a comprehensive accounting of team communication must grapple with the meanings of silence, including both its functional and problematic dimensions. Drawing on theories of discourse and power, this chapter will describe recurrent patterns of silence in the operating room, consider the actions and relations that these silences embody and discuss their implications for sophisticated evaluation of the communicative behaviour of operating room teams. Background Communication has been a dominant focus in the study of operating room (OR) team performance. This focus has emerged largely in response to evidence suggesting that preventable adverse events happen at unacceptably high rates in the surgical setting, and that ineffective or insufcient communication among team members is often a contributing factor (Kohn et al. 2000, Helmreich 2000, Helmreich and Davies 1994, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations 2003). However, despite the general agreement that ineffective communication threatens patient safety, until recently there was little evidence regarding what specic team communication practices and attitudes compromise safety, what methods might effectively change these patterns, or how the outcomes of such changes might be measured. . members; and interdepartmental coordination and communication challenges. These qualitative data enriched the quantitative ndings, and armed with these data, we were able Safer Surgery 276 to convince. Safer Surgery 274 recommended dened triggers that mandate communication with an attending surgeon;. events – this included use of the script; team engagement; and leadership of the surgeon. 4. 1. Safer Surgery 278 Administration of the Safety Attitude Questionnaires (Sexton et al. 2006a) to measure