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Surgical Team Structure: How Familiarity and Team Size Influence Communication Effectiveness in Military Surgical
Christopher H Stucky1, Felichism W Kabo2, Marla J De Jong3
1Center for Nursing Science and Clinical Inquiry (CNSCI), Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl Kirchberg, Rheinland-Pfalz 66849, Germany.
Military Medicine
|November 10, 2023
Summary
Surgical team familiarity and smaller team sizes improve communication effectiveness, reducing preventable patient harm. Leaders can foster cohesion by building familiarity and optimizing team size for better healthcare quality.
Area of Science:
- Healthcare quality improvement
- Surgical team dynamics
- Patient safety research
Background:
- Preventable patient harm remains a challenge in healthcare.
- Non-technical skills like communication significantly impact team performance and patient outcomes.
- Team structure, including familiarity and size, influences communication and efficiency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how surgical team structure affects communication effectiveness.
- To identify key structural components influencing interprofessional team performance in surgery.
Main Methods:
- Exploratory, prospective, cross-sectional study design.
- Surveyed 137 surgical teams (149 clinicians) at a military medical center.
- Statistical modeling to analyze relationships between communication effectiveness and team familiarity, size, surgical complexity, and presence of trainees.
Main Results:
- Higher team familiarity correlated with increased communication effectiveness (0.36 increase per unit familiarity).
- Larger team sizes were associated with decreased communication effectiveness (-0.1 decrease per additional member).
- Surgical complexity and the presence of residents/students did not significantly impact communication effectiveness.
Conclusions:
- For military surgical teams, increased familiarity and smaller team sizes enhance communication.
- Leaders should focus on fostering team cohesion through familiarity and optimizing team size.
- Bundled strategies integrating familiarity and size optimization can improve overall team performance and patient safety.
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