• A N Healey, C P Primus, and M Koutantji.
• Imperial College, London, UK. a.healey@imperial.ac.uk
• Qual Saf Health Care. 2007 Apr 1;16(2):135-9.

BackgroundTo enhance safety in surgery, it is necessary to develop a variety of tools for measuring and evaluating the system of work. One important consideration for safety in any high-risk work is the frequency and effect of distraction and interruption.AimTo quantify distraction and interruption to the sterile surgical team in urology.MethodsObservation of the behaviour of the surgical team and their task activity determined distraction and interruption recorded. Using an ordinal scale, an observer rated each salient distraction or interruption observed in relation to the team's involvement.ResultsThe frequency of events and their attached ratings were high, deriving from varying degrees of equipment, procedure and environment problems, telephones, bleepers and conversations.DiscussionWith further refinement and testing, this method may be useful for distinguishing ordinal levels of work interference in surgery and helpful in raising awareness of its origin for postoperative surgical team debriefing.

22 keywords...

hide…