Using an Educational Intervention to Map our Surgical Teams' Function, Emotional Intelligence, Communication and...

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Surgical Team Dynamics
• Organizational Psychology

Background:

• Effective teamwork and communication are critical in high-stakes surgical environments.
• Understanding interprofessional dynamics can mitigate conflicts and improve patient outcomes.
• Baseline data on communication, conflict management, emotional intelligence, and teamwork were needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess self and other awareness among surgical team members.
• To gather baseline data on communication, conflict management, emotional intelligence, and teamwork.
• To evaluate an educational intervention aimed at improving surgical team performance.

Main Methods:

• An educational intervention involving inventories to assess individual and team characteristics.
• Aggregation of inventory results to identify relationships and evaluate the intervention.
• Involved 551 interprofessional operating room team members from a level 1 trauma center.

Main Results:

• Surgeons exhibited individual-focused communication, while other team members were group-focused.
• The predominant conflict management style was avoiding, with collaboration being the least common.
• Low accountability scores were identified, indicating challenges in holding team members responsible.

Conclusions:

• Enhancing self and other awareness can foster clearer communication and identify strengths/blind spots.
• Improved understanding of team dynamics is expected to increase operating room efficiency.
• This knowledge is crucial for improving safety in the operating room.