2 Steps That Can Save an OR Team
By: Aorn Staff
Published: 2/6/2022
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Creating a Robotic Transplant Team is no easy task, as perioperative team members at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO, discovered through multiple failed attempts over a 10-year period. When a fresh team convened and found the same old hurdles to success caused by a lack of buy-in and team structure, they decided to take a hard look at their approach and themselves as clinicians and team leaders.
Through open and honest dialogue, they found one major issue: a lack of team communication. Not all staff on the fledgling robotic transplant team were feeling heard and respected and there wasn’t enough structure in place for team members to take accountability for their roles.
By implementing a new approach focused on using standardized communication tools for their robotics performance improvement, program leaders Merenda Scherer, MSN, CRNFA, and Danielle Theodorou, RN, BSN, MBA, CNOR, RNFA, realized they had made a breakthrough that led to successfully implementing their Robotic Transplant Team.
Next month the team will be sharing their secrets to success at Global Surgical Conference & Expo 2022. Scherer offered us a couple pearls of wisdom in advance to help others facing similar challenges.
#1: Listen
To help team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas, set up meetings with surgeons and nursing team members to gather information on past experiences with robotic surgery. “We used this information to create immediate and long-term goals and needs,” Scherer says.
#2: Establish a Standardized Briefing and Debriefing
A standardized briefing before the robotic transplant case and a standardized debriefing after the case helps team members track issues and modify the briefing and debriefing as needed to follow concerns and areas for improvement.
“The brief and debrief gave the team a sense of having a voice to discuss concerns, confirm the needs of the case, and talk about safety and preparedness,” she adds.
For example, during the initial briefings, teams voiced concerns about being able to seamlessly transition to an open case if needed. Now the briefing includes a safety check among the complete team to ensure there is a sterile instrument/stapler instrument release key for potential intra-operative emergencies.
Discussion on available instruments became a major topic of discussion during the early debriefings. Now each debriefing includes time for the surgeon to discuss robotic instrument usage for accurate charges and ideal preferences for future cases.
While their work with these communication tools has been used specifically to improve robotic transplant surgeries, Scherer stressed that these communication needs are common within any surgical team. “Taking the time to listen and truly act on input from the team made all the difference.”
Scherer and Theodorou’s education session on Building a Robotics Transplant team will also cover how to use education to improve team confidence, performance and accountability and they will share how they have increased efficiency and safety while decreasing costs. Register today for AORN Expo 2022.
