Abstract
This paper describes the communication analyses performed from both live and post-hoc review of 48 surgery cases at an academic medical center. Team performance in the operating room is relatively understudied and non-standardized compared to other high-risk industries. Our research group has worked to evaluate interventions for improving team performance. In this study, we compared the use of a checklist by the senior surgeon to current practices (where no checklist is used), and evaluated teams based on technical errors and communication skills. Communication was measured quantitatively by dividing the procedure into specific events and scoring individual team members using a grading scale from 1 to 5. Using this measure, the intervention group had significantly higher scores in several communication categories. Next, a subset of team member quotes were qualitatively analyzed and divided into four phases: setting the course, gathering data, exchanging information, and tribulations. This qualitative data was used to modify our analysis tools for later studies to take advantage of the patterns we were seeing.