Decision-making concordance in thoracic drain management: is necessary previous experience?

Proper management of thoracic drainages is essential in the recovery of patients after lung resection. This study evaluates the concordance in decision-making for drain removal depending on the type of drainage system used and the previous experience of the personnel.

Prospective, comparative, and stratified randomization study on interobserver variability between senior specialist doctors and inexperienced healthcare personnel in the removal of thoracic drains in patients undergoing lung resection connected to conventional systems (CS) or digital systems (DS) with continuous recording. The withdrawal criteria were established before the study, and decisions were recorded during three postoperative days.

75 patients were included, 38 CS and 37 DS, with no statistically significant differences in sex distribution, age, intervention performed, presence of pleuropulmonary adhesions, drain time, or post-extraction complications between the groups. The overall concordance in drain removal decisions was moderate (kappa = 0.452), with notable variations in concordance depending on the drainage system used: CS (kappa = 0.188) with an overall agreement rate of 61.7% compared to DS (kappa = 0.716) with an overall agreement rate of 86.4%. Digital systems showed substantial concordance regardless of the operator's experience, with kappa values indicating high concordance on all postoperative days.

The use of digital systems for managing thoracic drains significantly improves concordance in clinical decision-making regardless of the experience level. These findings suggest that adopting digital systems not only optimizes patient safety but also reduces the dependence on highly specialized healthcare professionals.