Crew Resource Management Improved Perception of Patient Safety in the Operating Room

Abstract

To improve safety in the operating theater, a company of aviation pilots was employed to guide implementation of preprocedural briefings. A 5-point Likert scale survey that assessed the attitudes of operating room personnel toward patient safety was distributed before and 6 months following implementation of the briefings. Using Mann-Whitney analysis, the survey showed a significant (P < .05) improvement in 2 questions (of 13) involving reporting error and 2 questions (of 11) involving patient safety climate. When analyzed by occupation, there were no significant changes for faculty physicians; for resident physicians, there was a significant improvement in 1 question (of 13) regarding error reporting. For nurses, there were significant improvements in 3 questions (of 4) involving teamwork, 1 question (of 13) involving reporting error, and 3 questions (of 11) regarding patient safety climate. These results suggest that aviation-based crew resource management initiatives lead to an improved perception of patient safety, which was largely demonstrated by nursing personnel.