Surgery
Enhancing the safety of surgical care is a fundamental pre-requisite to improving patient safety. This research theme integrates a sequence of overlapping studies, which mutually inform each other. These studies include a literature review, a review of local and national incident analyses, task analysis, observations of routine care, patients' views, safety culture assessment and simulator studies.
We are in the process of testing a number of interventions and error reduction strategies, and the findings will inform surgical team training in error management. A variety of ethnographic and human factors methods are being used to inform our understanding of surgical and related system errors. These include direct observations, interviews, checklists, surveys, questionnaires, walkthroughs, talkthroughs and verbal protocols. Observations are supported by video and audio recording in the operating theatre and in the simulator training suite. We are investigating issues relating to technical skill, communication, team performance, decision-making, situation awareness and performance influencing factors. This project will contribute to the creation of a centre of patient safety research in the UK and will facilitate international collaboration in a rapidly evolving field.
Surgery Projects
- “Safe Surgery Saves Lives”- Evaluating the Surgical Checklist
- Evaluation of Surgical Checklists and Briefings to enhance Teamwork and communication: A Collaboration with the Safer Patients Initiative
- Assessing Information Transfer and Communication in Major General Surgery
- Communication in the operating theatre
- Assessment of teamwork and non-technical skills in surgical and medical teams
- Defining Performance in Surgery
Surgery Research Team
Team Lead: Krishna Moorthy