Communication Preferences With Attending Surgeons Among Surgical Team Members

BackgroundHigh quality surgical patient care requires coordination of multidisciplinary teams with hierarchical structures. Good team communication is essential for optimal patient safety. We examined preferred modes of communication with attending surgeons to develop methods for improved team communication.MethodsAn anonymous survey was emailed to members of a single institution's surgery department, perioperative services, and hospital administration and distributed via QR code at the weekly surgery department conference. Respondents ranked their preferred modes of communication with attending surgeons from the following options: email, Epic secure chat, in person, Microsoft Teams chat, pager (traditional, Spok, or Voalte), phone call, and other, and responses were compared by role and experience.ResultsOf 49 respondents, 19 (39%) were attending physicians; 13 (27%), residents or fellows; 6 (12%), nurses; 3 (6%), advanced practice providers; 1 (2%), surgery scheduler; and 7 (14%), other. In-person and phone communication ranked highest and pager, lowest within all groups. Difference-in-difference analyses showed no significant overall ranking differences by role (P = 0.10), including when comparing attendings to non-attendings (P = 0.15), or by departmental experience (P = 0.40). Non-attendings ranked in-person communication higher (P = 0.032) and email lower (P = 0.039) than did attendings. There were no other significant differences in communication preferences by subgroup.DiscussionOverall and by subgroup, verbal communication with attending surgeons is preferred over non-verbal communication. Efforts should be made to de-emphasize electronic communication. Patient outcomes from implementation of frameworks that enable verbal communication within and among surgical teams require further study.