Evaluation of a preoperative team briefing: a new communication routine results in improved clinical practice

Abstract

BACKGROUND Suboptimal communication within healthcare teams can lead to adverse patient outcomes. Team briefings were previously associated with improved communication patterns, and we assessed the impact of briefings on clinical practice. To quantify the impact of the preoperative team briefing on direct patient care, we studied the timing of preoperative antibiotic administration as compared to accepted treatment guidelines. STUDY DESIGN A retrospective pre-intervention/post-intervention study design assessed the impact of a checklist-guided preoperative team briefing on prophylactic antibiotic administration timing in surgical cases (N=340 pre-intervention and N=340 post-intervention) across three institutions. χ(2) Analyses were performed to determine whether there was a significant difference in timely antibiotic administration between the study phases. RESULTS The process of collecting and analysing these data proved to be more complicated than expected due to great variability in documentation practices, both between study sites and between individual practitioners. In cases where the timing of antibiotics administration was documented unambiguously in the chart (n=259 pre-intervention and n=283 post-intervention), antibiotic prophylaxis was on time for 77.6% of cases in the pre-intervention phase of the study, and for 87.6% of cases in the post-intervention phase (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Use of a preoperative team checklist briefing was associated with improved physician compliance with antibiotic administration guidelines. Based on the results, recommendations to enhance timely antibiotic therapy are provided.

Information transfer in multidisciplinary operating room teams: a simulation-based observational study

“…Evidence for the effectiveness of the SSC in reducing patient morbidity and mortality is generally very positive31 32 and the three phases of the SSC: sign in, time out and sign out are well established in many hospitals. More recently, the Patient Safety First Campaign in the UK recommended that preoperative briefings and postoperative debriefings should be included in the SSC to form the Five Steps to Safer Surgery (5SSS),33 to further improve communication between the OR team 34 35. Hill and colleagues also found significant improvements in safety culture attitudes after the implementation of the 5SSS, specifically highlighting the importance that the OR staff attached to the formal prelist briefings 36.…”

Objective structured assessment of nontechnical skills: Reliability of a global rating scale for the in-training assessment in the operating room

“…[9][10][11][12]17 Briefing and conducting the surgical time-out were included in the descriptive anchors, as they represent formal strategies to ensure a shared understanding that have been associated with patient safety and are commonly carried out by residents. 3,35,36 The fourth item, communication, has equally been identified as a critical factor in intraoperative patient safety. 2 Similarly, communication failures have been associated with perioperative complications and errors.…”

Surgical Team Mapping: Implications for Staff Allocation and Coordination

“…Previous research has found that team membership and the quality of intergroup and interdisciplinary communications potentially can contribute to the quality of patient care. 11,18 LITERATURE REVIEW All surgical procedures require a high level of coordination between various individuals from different professional disciplines. 15 The complexity of a surgical procedure affects every aspect of team performance.…”