Branaghan, Russell J.

Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) is increasingly recognized as critical to improve patient safety, quality of care and health care professional wellbeing; in particular, much HF/E work has focused on surgery and surgical teams. However, conducting research and practicing in health care broadly, and the operating room (OR) specifically, requires specialized knowledge, skills and experience. HF/E professionals trained in other application areas may face challenges in transitioning due to the specialized knowledge required, regulatory considerations, and complex sociotechnical systems in the OR. This panel is designed for HF/E students, practitioners and researchers who are interested in expanding their work to the OR, procedural suites or modeling these for usability studies. The panel will provide attendees with insights from established HF/E researchers and professionals who study the OR as well as a newcomer to the domain, offering perspectives on career transition challenges, opportunities, and strategies for success.

Briefings are suggested to be an important mechanism for establishing and maintaining cohesive teams. However, there is still much to learn about briefings and how best to design and implement them for surgical teams in the operating room. Currently, there are no formally recognized protocols or methodologies for conducting surgical team briefings. This research reports preliminary findings from an effort to develop a model of team briefings for gynecological surgical teams. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using techniques derived from Applied Cognitive Task Analysis (Millitello & Hutton, 1998) with thirteen surgical team members spanning six different roles including surgeon, surgical resident, registered nurse, certified surgical assistant, certified scrub technician, and anesthesia. Findings reveal that informational needs are consistent across the team but also vary by individual role, illustrating the importance of addressing all stakeholders in potential interventions. Implications for the development of a team briefing model are discussed.