Inadequate Preoperative Team Briefings Lead to More Intraoperative Adverse Events

Introduction Implementation of the World Health Organization checklists has reduced major surgical complications and errors; however, the impact of preoperative briefings on intraoperative adverse events has not been assessed. Materials and Methods A prospective case-control study assessing the association between preoperative briefings and minor, potentially major, and major adverse intraoperative events was performed in 2 phases. Phase 1 involved prospective data collection for all trauma and orthopedic lists during a 2-week period. Changes were implemented as a result of the findings, and after this, the study was repeated (phase 2) to assess for the effect of the changes made to the practice. Results Forty-one lists were audited during phase 1 and 47 lists were audited during phase 2 of the study. Adequate preoperative briefings were performed in 10 (24%) of 41 lists in phase 1. There was a significant association between the occurrences of intraoperative adverse events (n = 37) when a briefing was not performed (P =
Source: Journal of Patient Safety - Category: Health Management Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research