Addressing disruptive medical staff behavior: a 3-year experience

Menezes et al. describe their experience with the diagnosis and management of disruptive medical staff behavior in a private hospital between 2020 and 2022. Surgical medical specialties were found to demonstrate the highest prevalence of such behavior, and continual education of physicians regarding appropriate workplace behavior was found to be the most important management strategy to prevent unsafe work environments and strengthen an appropriate culture of safety.

■ Disruptive medical staff behavior potentially affects patient care.

■ Surgical specialties have the highest incidence of disruptive medical staff behavior.

■ Proper diagnosis and management is key to the mitigating disruptive medical staff behavior.

To describe the 3-year long experience of addressing disruptive events by medical staff in a private hospital.

The cross-sectional study that was conducted between 2020 and 2022, involved collection, analysis, and management of suspected cases of disruptive behavior by medical staff.

Relevant information was collected from reports issued by health care leaders (69%), anonymous reports accessed from the health institution's intranet tool "SINAPSE" (19%), the compliance center (5%), customer attendance service (3.7%), the hospital board (2.3%), and the medical practice department (1%). Surgical specialties were responsible for 70.3% of the disruptive incidents, and the average time to outcome was 24.5 days, with most solutions involving guided education of physicians (92.7%).

Management of disruptive behavior by medical staff is essential for the prevention of unsafe work environments and strengthening a culture of safety.