SAFETY CULTURE
Remote Assessment of Real-World Surgical Safety Checklist Performance Using the OR Black Box
Published on
February 1, 2024
Journal of the American College of Surgeons
Overview
This retrospective cohort study utilized the OR Black Box® to evaluate surgical safety checklist performance across 7 North American academic medical centers. The study analyzed data from 7,243 surgical procedures conducted between August 2020 and January 2022, focusing on checklist compliance, team engagement, and the quality of checklist content review.
The study concludes that the OR Black Box can provide valuable insights into checklist performance and suggests its potential for improving intraoperative processes, while also highlighting areas for improvement in checklist adherence and team engagement.
Results
The results revealed high compliance with the time-out procedure (98.4% of cases) but lower adherence to the debrief (62.3% of cases). Team engagement varied, with an average of 75.5% of staff participating in the time-out and 54.6% in the debrief. Notably, when a team introduction was performed (in 42.6% of cases), it correlated with improved time-out performance, including more completed prompts, higher engagement scores, and increased staff focus.
