Communication and team situation awareness in the OR: Implications for augmentative information display

Abstract

Team Situation Awareness (TSA) is one of the critical factors in effective Operating Room (OR) teamwork and can impact patient safety and quality of care. While previous research showed a relationship between situation awareness, as measured by communication events, and team performance, the implications for developing technology to augment and facilitate TSA were not examined. This research aims to further study situation-related communications in the cardiac OR in order to uncover potential degradation in TSA which may lead to adverse events. The communication loop construct-the full cycle of information flow between the participants in the sequence-was used to assess susceptibility to breakdown. Previous research and the findings here suggest that communication loops that are open, non-directed, or with delayed closure, can be susceptible to information loss. These were quantitatively related to communication indicators of TSA such as questions, replies, and announcements. Taken together, both qualitative and quantitative analyses suggest that a high proportion of TSA-related communication (63%) can be characterized as susceptible to information loss. The findings were then used to derive requirements and design a TSA augmentative display. The design principles and potential benefits of such a display are outlined and discussed.

Supporting Situation Awareness Through Robot-to-Human Information Exchanges Under Conditions of Visuospatial Perspective Taking

“…A study by Parush et al (2011) observed surgical teams performing ten open-heart surgeries to investigate the communicative processes by which SA was developed and maintained within surgical teams. The researchers focused on speech acts in which situation-related information was shared among the team.…”

Kommunikáció az egészségügyi teamen belül: orvosok és szakdolgozók

“…A csapatmunka hiányosságai számos okra vezethetők vissza, amelyek között szerepet játszik a csapattagok in tézményi státusza, hierarchiában elfoglalt helye, a hibák és tévedések kezelése, egyéni tényezők sora (nemi kü lönbségek, stressztolerancia), valamint több külső ténye ző is (felszereltség, intézményi jellemzők) [13]. A hibás kommunikációs mechanizmusok (például a le nem zárt vagy késleltetett információcsere) számos lényeges, gyak ran életfontosságú információveszteségért tehetők fele lőssé [14]. A betegbiztonság és a hatékony együttműkö dés érdekében szervezett tréningek -mint például a Sawyer és kutatótársai [15] által létrehozott Team STEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Perfor mance and Patient Safety) program -gördülékenyebbé teszik a csapatmunkát, pozitív szerkezeti változásokat indukálnak, serkentik a kölcsönös támogatás rendszeré nek kialakítását, és javítják a csapattagok közötti kommu nikációt.…”

Designing Collaborative Healthcare Technology for the Acute Care Workflow

“…The fields of human factors and human-computer interaction have employed various means to augment clinical settings for teams [11], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27]. France et al [28] found electronic whiteboard use reduces physician workload in an ED, resulting in fewer workflow interruptions.…”