British journal of anaesthesia
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This review presents the background to the development of the anaesthetists' non-technical skills (ANTS) taxonomy and behaviour rating tool, which is the first non-technical skills framework specifically designed for anaesthetists. We share the experience of the anaesthetists who designed ANTS in relation to applying it in a department of anaesthesia, using it in a simulation centre, and the process of introducing it to the profession on a national basis. We also consider how ANTS is being applied in relation to training and research in other countries and finally, we discuss emerging issues in relation to the introduction of a non-technical skills approach in anaesthesia.
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Communication is a key skill for anaesthetic practice. The 'non-informational' aspects of communication, such as non-verbal elements and the degree to which the style of communication reflects the implied relationship between the sender and the recipient, are relevant to interactions both between anaesthetists and patients and to interactions with other members of staff in the team. Communication and interaction between members of the anaesthesia team in isolation has received less attention than communication in the operating theatre during surgery. ⋯ The handover event also serves as an opportunity to review the care the patient has received and plan for further progress. Anaesthetists and nurses use unspoken and implicit negotiation strategies to achieve the aims of handover without compromising future collaborative work. This is in contrast to the more formalized handover approaches in other safety-critical settings.
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Review
Doing a good job and getting something good out of it: on stress and well-being in anaesthesia.
The anaesthetist's work, aimed at giving safe anaesthesia to patients, can do both harm and good to the anaesthetist. Research on stress in anaesthesia has traditionally focused on how the negative effects of stress can be avoided and much effort has been put into improving anaesthetists' work environment to reduce the level of stress. In this review, however, we give attention instead to what the individual anaesthetist can do to improve his or her well-being at work. ⋯ We describe here some lines of thought that experienced anaesthetists use to buffer the effects of work stress on physical health and mental well-being. By reframing a situation, they can reduce its stress content even if the problem at hand cannot be successfully solved. Trainee anaesthetists, who experience much stress at work and are at risk of burnout, would benefit from learning about these coping strategies.
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Letter Randomized Controlled Trial
Postoperative sore throat and ketamine gargle.
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Unreliable delivery of best practice care is a major component of medical error. Critically ill patients are particularly susceptible to error and unreliable care. Human factors analysis, widely used in industry, provides insights into how interactions between organizations, tasks, and the individual worker impact on human behaviour and affect systems reliability. ⋯ Technical interventions should be embedded in everyday practice by the adjunctive use of non-technical (behavioural) interventions. These include executive 'adoption' of clinical areas, systematic methods for identifying hazards and reflective learning from error, and a range of techniques for improving teamworking and communication. Human factors analysis provides a useful framework for understanding and rectifying the causes of error and unreliability, particularly in complex systems such as critical care.