Non-Technical Skills and Team Performance in the Operating Theatre

Project summary

Background

Surgery is a complex, inherently risky human activity. Everyday, surgeons perform potentially lifesaving procedures in the highly pressured environment of the operating theatre (OT). Surgeons do not work alone: they operate with anaesthetists, nurses, and potentially other specialists. Although the members of the OT team originate from different professional backgrounds (e.g. medicine & nursing), it is vital that they work together effectively to perform safe surgery. A substantial proportion of adverse events are attributed to poor teamworking and related skills – incl. situation awareness and coordination between team-members in the OR (Kohn et al., 1999). The past 10 years has witnessed a large growth in the number of researchers attempting to quantify, measure and improve teamwork in the OT. However the impact of non-technical and team skills on technical performance and clinical outcomes remains unclear due to a lack of empirical evidence which demonstrates the relationship between non-technical and team skills and technical performance.

The proposed research aims (i) to explore the current understanding of teamworking/non-technical skills in the OT and the relationship between teamworking/non-technical skills on technical performance (ii) to bridge the current gap in the evidence base between technical and non-technical skills.

Aims

• Understand the relationship between surgical teamworking/non-technical skills and technical performance/clinical outcome
• Empirically assess the interdependency between technical and non-technical skills
• Explore how to deliver training in both technical and non-technical skills

Outputs

Hull L, Sevdalis N. Advances In Teaching And Assessing Non-Technical Skills. Surgical Clinics of North America (in press)

Hull L, Arora S, Stefanidis D, Sevdalis N. Facilitating the implementation of the ACS/APDS Phase III skills curriculum: Training faculty in the assessment of team skills. Surgery (in press)

Wheelock A, Suliman A, Wharton R, Babu ED, Hull L, Vincent C, Sevdalis N, Arora S. The impact of operating room distractions on stress, workload and teamwork. Annals of Surgery (in press)

Hull L, Sevdalis N. Teamwork and safety in surgery. Colombian Journal of Anesthesiology. 2015; 43(1):3-6.

Arora S, Hull L, Fitzpatrick M, Sevdalis N, Birnbach DJ. Crisis Management on Surgical Wards: A Simulation-Based Approach to Enhancing Technical, Teamwork, and Patient Interaction Skills. Annals of Surgery 2015 [Epub ahead of print]