What's in a Name? Enhancing Communication in the Operating Room with the Use of Names and Roles on Surgical Caps

Brodzinsky, Laura; Crowe, Susan; Lee, Henry Chong; Goldhaber-Fiebert, Sara N.; Sie, Lillian; Padua, Kimber Lee; Daniels, Kay

doi:10.1016/j.jcjq.2020.11.012

Cited by 7 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Non-technical skills can be improved by team members addressing each other using their first names: this improves communication and role allocation, reduces confusion in an emergency, can improve morale and can promote a strong team safety culture [52][53][54]. Having names clearly displayed on badges, theatre hats [52,53], theatre white boards or on personal protective equipment helps staff to regularly use their team members' first names [54]. Non-technical skills can also be improved by team members routinely verbalising their thoughts and actions, and in doing so sharing their `mental model´ [8,55].…”

Section: Practising Non-technical Skills During Everyday Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implementing human factors in anaesthesia: guidance for clinicians, departments and hospitals

et al. 2023

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SummaryHuman factors is an evidence‐based scientific discipline used in safety critical industries to improve safety and worker well‐being. The implementation of human factors strategies in anaesthesia has the potential to reduce the reliance on exceptional personal and team performance to provide safe and high‐quality patient care. To encourage the adoption of human factors science in anaesthesia, the Difficult Airway Society and the Association of Anaesthetists established a Working Party, including anaesthetists and operating theatre team members with human factors expertise and/or interest, plus a human factors scientist, an industrial psychologist and an experimental psychologist/implementation scientist. A three‐stage Delphi process was used to formulate a set of 12 recommendations: these are described using a ‘hierarchy of controls’ model and classified into design, barriers, mitigations and education and training strategies. Although most anaesthetic knowledge of human factors concerns non‐technical skills, such as teamwork and communication, human factors is a broad‐based scientific discipline with many other additional aspects that are just as important. Indeed, the human factors strategies most likely to have the greatest impact are those related to the design of safe working environments, equipment and systems. While our recommendations are primarily provided for anaesthetists and the teams they work with, there are likely to be lessons for others working in healthcare beyond the speciality of anaesthesia.

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Section: Practising Non-technical Skills During Everyday Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, name badges, name/role stickers [54], theatre white boards, pre‐list safety briefings [40], named theatre hats [52, 53]…”

Section: Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing human factors in anaesthesia: guidance for clinicians, departments and hospitals

et al. 2023

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“…One proposed solution to increase awareness of team members first names was to display staff members name and role on the front surface of their theatre hat. This idea had received significant attention in the media and to a limited degree in anaesthetic [ 16 , 17 ] and obstetric [ 18 ] literature. This idea had not been extensively tested despite having a high degree of face validity, and existing evidence was limited to specific craft groups or operation types.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surgical caps displaying team members' names and roles improve effective communication in the operating room: a pilot study

et al. 2021

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Background Teamwork in the operating theatre is a complex emergent phenomenon and is driven by cooperative relationships between staff. A foundational requirement for teamwork is the ability to communicate effectively, and in particular, knowing each other’s name. Many operating theatre staff do not know each other’s name, even after formal team introductions. The use of theatre caps to display a staff member’s name and role has been suggested to improve communication and teamwork. Methods We hypothesized that the implementation of scrub hats with individual team members' names and roles would improve the perceived quality and effectiveness of communication in the operating theatre. A pilot project was designed as a pre-/post-implementation questionnaire sent to 236 operating room staff members at a general hospital in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, between November 6 to December 18, 2018. Participants included medical practitioners (anaesthetists, surgeons, obstetricians and gynaecologists), nurses (anaesthetic, scrub/scout and paediatric nurses), midwives and theatre technicians. The primary outcome was a change in perceived teamwork score, measured using a five position Likert scale. Results Of 236 enrolled participants, 107 (45%) completed both the pre and post intervention surveys. The median perceived teamwork response of four did not change after the intervention, though the number of low scores was reduced (p = 0.015). In a pre-planned subgroup analysis, the median perceived teamwork score rose for midwives from three to four (p < 0.001), while for other craft groups remained similar. The median number of staff members in theatre that a participant did not know the name of reduced from three to two (p < 0.001). Participants reported knowing the names of all staff members present in the theatre more frequently after the intervention (31% vs 15%, p < 0.001). The reported rate of formal team introductions was not significantly different after the intervention (34.7% vs 47.7% p = 0.058). Conclusions In this study, we found that wearing caps displaying name and role appeared to improve perceived teamwork and improve communication between staff members working in the operating theatre.

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“…Recent reports have shown that, in the surgical domain, respect for names engenders a stronger work ethic and builds trust. 1 – 3 For instance, surgical providers wearing scrub caps with their preferred names embroidered on them reported better intraoperative communication, an increase in the absolute number of times proper names were used during commands and questions and, importantly, reduced frequency of missed communications. 3 , 4 Although one should feel empowered to stand up for one’s name, confronting the bias that drives the micro-aggressive practice of anglicizing names is an important step toward making medicine more welcoming to people from all walks of life.…”

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confidence: 99%

What’s in a name? Identity, it turns out

Agarwal

2022

CMAJ

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What's in a Name? Enhancing Communication in the Operating Room with the Use of Names and Roles on Surgical Caps

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

Implementing human factors in anaesthesia: guidance for clinicians, departments and hospitals

Implementing human factors in anaesthesia: guidance for clinicians, departments and hospitals

Surgical caps displaying team members' names and roles improve effective communication in the operating room: a pilot study

What’s in a name? Identity, it turns out

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