Evaluating the Impact of Operative Team Familiarity on Cardiac Surgery Outcomes: A Retrospective Cohort Study of Medicare Beneficiaries.

OBJECTIVE: To associate surgeon-anesthesiologist team familiarity (TF) with cardiac surgery outcomes. BACKGROUND: TF, a measure of repeated team member collaborations, has been associated with improved operative efficiency; however, examination of its relationship to clinical outcomes has been limited. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included Medicare beneficiaries undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR), or both (CABG+SAVR) between January 1, 2017, and September 30, 2018. TF was defined as the number of shared procedures between the cardiac surgeon and anesthesiologist within 6 months of each operation. Primary outcomes were 30- and 90-day mortality, composite morbidity, and 30-day mortality or composite morbidity, assessed before and after risk adjustment using multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: The cohort included 113,020 patients (84,397 CABG; 15,939 SAVR; 12,684 CABG+SAVR). Surgeon-anesthesiologist dyads in the highest [31631 patients, TF median (interquartile range)=8 (6, 11)] and lowest [44,307 patients, TF=0 (0, 1)] TF terciles were termed familiar and unfamiliar, respectively. The rates of observed outcomes were lower among familiar versus unfamiliar teams: 30-day mortality (2.8% vs 3.1%, P =0.001), 90-day mortality (4.2% vs 4.5%, P =0.023), composite morbidity (57.4% vs 60.6%, P <0.001), and 30-day mortality or composite morbidity (57.9% vs 61.1%, P <0.001). Familiar teams had lower overall risk-adjusted odds of 30-day mortality or composite morbidity [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.894 (0.868, 0.922), P <0.001], and for SAVR significantly lower 30-day mortality [aOR 0.724 (0.547, 0.959), P =0.024], 90-day mortality [aOR 0.779 (0.620, 0.978), P =0.031], and 30-day mortality or composite morbidity [aOR 0.856 (0.791, 0.927), P <0.001]. CONCLUSIONS: Given its relationship with improved 30-day cardiac surgical outcomes, increasing TF should be considered among strategies to advance patient outcomes.

Too loud to hear myself think: deleterious effects of noise in the operating room.

Noise is part of daily life in the operating room, and too often is viewed as a necessary evil. However, much of the noise in operating rooms (ORs) is unnecessary, such as extraneous conversations and music, and could be reduced. At the least, noise is known to increase staff stress and to hamper effective communication; at the worst, it adversely affects patient outcomes. Every member of the OR team should be cognisant of this and work to reduce unnecessary noise.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Adult Cardiac Surgery Database: Intraoperative Echocardiography Reporting.

OBJECTIVES: To identify trends in the reporting of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiographic (TEE) data in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD) and the Adult Cardiac Anesthesiology (ACA) module by period, practice type, and geographic distribution, and to elucidate ongoing areas for practice improvement. DESIGN: A retrospective study. SETTING: STS ACSD. PARTICIPANTS: Procedures reported in the STS ACSD between July 2017 and December 2021 in participating programs in the United States. INTERVENTIONS: None MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Intraoperative TEE is reported for 73% of all procedures in ACSD. Although the intraoperative TEE data reporting rate increased from 2017 to 2021 for isolated coronary artery bypass graft surgery, it remained low at 62.2%. The reporting of relevant echocardiographic variables across a wide range of procedures has steadily increased over the study period but also remained low. The reporting in the ACA module is high for most variables and across all anesthesia care models; however, the overall contribution of the ACA module to the ACSD remains low. CONCLUSIONS: This progress report suggests a continued need to raise awareness regarding current practices of reporting intraoperative TEE in the ACSD and the ACA, and highlights opportunities for improving reporting and data abstraction.

Implementing change in the care of the complex cardiac patient.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Development of advanced and minimally invasive surgical procedures is providing treatment opportunities to older and higher risk patients. This has also led to highly specialized physicians and a need for better communication and planning with the patients and within the care team. RECENT FINDINGS: In the field of cardiac surgery, the heart team model has been advocated and implemented as a vehicle to optimize decision making prior to procedure, care during the procedure and in the recovery process. The goal is to provide a treatment path that prioritizes the patient's goals and to anticipate and minimize complications. SUMMARY: In this review, we discuss the concepts of shared decision making (SDM) and implementation science in the context of the complex cardiac patient. We also review the most recent evidence for their use in cardiac surgery. We argue that a team model not only bridges knowledge gaps but provides a multidisciplinary environment for the practice of SDM and implementation of evidence-based practices. Be believe this will provide patients with a better experience as they navigate their care and improve their medical outcomes as well.

Medication errors, critical incidents, adverse drug events, and more: a review examining patient safety-related terminology in anaesthesia.

Literature focused on quantifying or reducing patient harm in anaesthesia uses a variety of labels and definitions to represent patient safety-related events, such as 'medication errors', 'adverse events', and 'critical incidents'. This review extracts and compares definitions of patient safety-related terminology in anaesthesia to examine the scope of this variability and inconsistencies. A structured review was performed in which 36 of the 769 articles reviewed met the inclusion criteria. Similar terms were grouped into six categories by similarities in keyword choice (Adverse Event, Critical Incident, Medication Error, Error, Near Miss, and Harm) and their definitions were broken down into three base components to allow for comparison. Our analysis found that the Medication Error category, which encompasses the greatest number of terms, had widely variant definitions which represent fundamentally different concepts. Definitions of terms within the other categories consistently represented relatively similar concepts, though key variations in wording remain. This inconsistency in terminology can lead to problems with synthesising, interpreting, and overall sensemaking in relation to anaesthesia medication safety. Guidance towards how 'medication errors' should be defined is provided, yet a definition will have little impact on the future of patient safety without organisations and journals taking the lead to promote, publish, and standardise definitions.

Observational study of anaesthesia workflow to evaluate physical workspace design and layout.

BACKGROUND: The safety and efficiency of anaesthesia care depend on the design of the physical workspace. However, little is known about the influence that workspace design has on the ability to perform complex operating theatre (OT) work. The aim of this study was to observe the relationship between task switching and physical layout, and then use the data collected to design and assess different anaesthesia workspace layouts. METHODS: In this observational study, six videos of anaesthesia providers were analysed from a single centre in the United States. A task analysis of workflow during the maintenance phase of anaesthesia was performed by categorising tasks. The data supported evaluations of alternative workspace designs. RESULTS: An anaesthesia provider's time was occupied primarily by three tasks: patient (mean: 30.0% of total maintenance duration), electronic medical record (26.6%), and visual display tasks (18.6%). The mean time between task switches was 6.39 s. With the current workspace layout, the anaesthesia provider was centred toward the patient for approximately half of the maintenance duration. Evaluating the alternative layout designs showed how equipment arrangements could improve task switching and increase the provider's focus towards the patient and visual displays. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that current operating theatre layouts do not fit work demands. We report a simple method that facilitates a quick layout design assessment and showed that the anaesthesia workspace can be improved to better suit workflow and patient care. Overall, this arrangement could reduce anaesthesia workload while improving task flow efficiency and potentially the safety of care.

How Do We Use Dashboards to Enhance Quality in Cardiac Anesthesia?

The use of clinical dashboards has expanded significantly in healthcare in recent years in a variety of settings. The ability to analyze data related to quality metrics in one screen is highly desirable for cardiac anesthesiologists, as they have considerable influence on important clinical outcomes. Building a robust quality program within cardiac anesthesia relies on consistent access and review of quality outcome measures, process measures, and operational measures through a clinical dashboard. Signals and trends in these measures may be compared to other cardiac surgical programs to analyze gaps and areas for quality improvement efforts. In this article, the authors describe how they designed a clinical cardiac anesthesia dashboard for quality efforts at their institution.

The Adult Cardiac Anesthesiology Section of STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database: 2020 Update on Quality and Outcomes.

The Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, in partnership with The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, has developed the Adult Cardiac Anesthesiology Section of the Adult Cardiac Surgery Database. The goal of this landmark collaboration is to advance clinical care, quality, and knowledge, and to demonstrate the value of cardiac anesthesiology in the perioperative care of cardiac surgical patients. Participation in the Adult Cardiac Anesthesiology Section has been optional since its inception in 2014 but has progressively increased. Opportunities for further growth and improvement remain. In this first update report on quality and outcomes of the Adult Cardiac Anesthesiology Section, we present an overview of the clinically significant anesthesia and surgical variables submitted between 2015 and 2018. Our review provides a summary of quality measures and outcomes related to the current practice of cardiothoracic anesthesiology. We also emphasize the potential for addressing high-impact research questions as data accumulate, with the overall goal of elucidating the influence of cardiac anesthesiology contributions to patient outcomes within the framework of the cardiac surgical team.

How do I audit intraoperative blood component utilization in cardiac surgery?

BACKGROUND: Patient blood management programs are tasked with auditing transfusions for appropriateness; however, cardiac surgical programs have high variability in blood utilization. After benchmarking intraoperative blood utilization as higher than expected, we devised effective methods for audits with feedback to the cardiac anesthesiologists that are described in this report. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Red blood cell (RBC), plasma, platelet (PLT), and cryoprecipitate transfusion data were collected from the electronic record system for 2242 patients having cardiac surgery from July 2016 until July 2018. In July 2017, we performed audits with feedback using rank-order bar graphs displayed on the anesthesiology office door for intraoperative blood utilization. Individual providers were compared to their peers for all four major blood components, with the goal of improving practice by reducing variability. RESULTS: After the audits with feedback, the intraoperative mean units/patient decreased for RBCs (from 1.9 to 1.2 units/patient; p = 0.0004), for plasma (from 1.8 to 1.2 units/patient; p = 0.0038), and for PLTs (from 0.7 to 0.4 units/patient; p < 0.0001), but not for cryoprecipitate (from 0.24 to 0.18 units/patient; p = 0.13). Whole hospital (from admit to discharge) utilization decreased significantly for plasma and PLTs, but the changes for RBCs and cryoprecipitate were nonsignificant. CONCLUSION: Despite challenges in abstracting data from the electronic medical record, using such data to create provider-specific audits with feedback can be an effective tool to promote quality improvement. Future plans include audits with feedback for providers who order transfusion outside the operating room.

Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists Clinical Practice Improvement Advisory for Management of Perioperative Bleeding and Hemostasis in Cardiac Surgery Patients.

Bleeding after cardiac surgery is a common and serious complication leading to transfusion of multiple blood products and resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Despite the publication of numerous guidelines and consensus statements for patient blood management in cardiac surgery, research has revealed that adherence to these guidelines is poor, and as a result, a significant variability in patient transfusion practices among practitioners still remains. In addition, although utilization of point-of-care (POC) coagulation monitors and the use of novel therapeutic strategies for perioperative hemostasis, such as the use of coagulation factor concentrates, have increased significantly over the last decade, they are still not widely available in every institution. Therefore, despite continuous efforts, blood transfusion in cardiac surgery has only modestly declined over the last decade, remaining at ≥50% in high-risk patients. Given these limitations, and in response to new regulatory and legislature requirements, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists (SCA) has formed the Blood Conservation in Cardiac Surgery Working Group to organize, summarize, and disseminate the available best-practice knowledge in patient blood management in cardiac surgery. The current publication includes the summary statements and algorithms designed by the working group, after collection and review of the existing guidelines, consensus statements, and recommendations for patient blood management practices in cardiac surgery patients. The overall goal is creating a dynamic resource of easily accessible educational material that will help to increase and improve compliance with the existing evidence-based best practices of patient blood management by cardiac surgery care teams.

Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists Clinical Practice Improvement Advisory for Management of Perioperative Bleeding and Hemostasis in Cardiac Surgery Patients.

Bleeding after cardiac surgery is a common and serious complication leading to transfusion of multiple blood products and resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. Despite the publication of numerous guidelines and consensus statements for patient blood management in cardiac surgery, research has revealed that adherence to these guidelines is poor, and as a result, a significant variability in patient transfusion practices among practitioners still remains. In addition, although utilization of point of care coagulation monitors and the use of novel therapeutic strategies for perioperative hemostasis, such as the use of coagulation factor concentrates, has increased significantly over the last decade, they are still not widely available in every institution. Therefore, despite continuous efforts, blood transfusion in cardiac surgery has declined only modestly over the last decade, remaining at 50% or greater in high-risk patients. Given these limitations and in response to new regulatory and legislature requirements, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists has formed the Blood Conservation in Cardiac Surgery Working Group in order to organize, summarize, and disseminate the available best-practice knowledge in patient blood management in cardiac surgery. The current publication includes the summary statements and algorithms designed by the working group, after collection and review of the existing guidelines, consensus statements, and recommendations for patient blood management practices in cardiac surgery patients. The overall goal is creating a dynamic resource of easily accessible educational material that will help to increase and improve compliance with the existing evidence-based best practices of patient blood management by cardiac surgery care teams.

A Human Factors Engineering Study of the Medication Delivery Process during an Anesthetic: Self-filled Syringes versus Prefilled Syringes.

BACKGROUND: Prefilled syringes (PFS) have been recommended by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. However, aspects in PFS systems compared with self-filled syringes (SFS) systems have never been explored. The aim of this study is to compare system vulnerabilities (SVs) in the two systems and understand the impact of PFS on medication safety and efficiency in the context of anesthesiology medication delivery in operating rooms. METHODS: This study is primarily qualitative research, with a quantitative portion. A work system analysis was conducted to analyze the complicated anesthesia work system using human factors principles and identify SVs. Anesthesia providers were shadowed: (1) during general surgery cases (n = 8) exclusively using SFS and (2) during general surgery cases (n = 9) using all commercially available PFS. A proactive risk assessment focus group was followed to understand the risk of each identified SV. RESULTS: PFS are superior to SFS in terms of the simplified work processes and the reduced number and associated risk of SVs. Eight SVs were found in the PFS system versus 21 in the SFS system. An SV example with high risk in the SFS system was a medication might need to be "drawn-up during surgery while completing other requests simultaneously." This SV added cognitive complexity during anesthesiology medication delivery. However, it did not exist in the PFS system. CONCLUSIONS: The inclusion of PFS into anesthesiology medication delivery has the potential to improve system safety and work efficiency. However, there were still opportunities for further improvement by addressing the remaining SVs and newly introduced complexity.

FOCUS: the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists' initiative to improve quality and safety in the cardiovascular operating room.

The Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists (SCA) introduced the FOCUS initiative (Flawless Operative Cardiovascular Unified Systems) in 2005 in response to the need for a rigorous scientific approach to improve quality and safety in the cardiovascular operating room (CVOR). The goal of the project, which is supported by the SCA Foundation, is to identify hazards and develop evidence-based protocols to improve cardiac surgery safety. A hazard is anything that has the potential to cause a preventable adverse event. Specifically, the strategic plan of FOCUS includes 3 goals: (1) identifying hazards in the CVOR, (2) prioritizing hazards and developing risk-reduction interventions, and (3) disseminating these interventions. Collectively, the FOCUS initiative, through the work of several groups composed of members from different disciplines such as clinical medicine, human factors engineering, industrial psychology, and organizational sociology, has identified and documented significant hazards occurring daily in our CVORs. Some examples of frequent occurrences that contribute to reduce the safety and quality of care provided to cardiac surgery patients include deficiencies in teamwork, poor OR design, incompatible technologies, and failure to adhere to best practices. Several projects are currently under way that are aimed at better understanding these hazards and developing interventions to mitigate them. The SCA, through the FOCUS initiative, has begun this journey of science-driven improvement in quality and safety. There is a long and arduous road ahead, but one we need to continue to travel.

The movement of syringes and medication during anesthesiology delivery: An observational study in laparoscopic surgeries.

The movements of syringes and medications during an anesthetic case have yet to be systematically documented. We examine how syringes and medication move through the anesthesia work area during a case. We conducted a video-based observational study of 14 laparoscopic surgeries. We defined 'syringe events' as when syringe was picked up and moved. Medications were administered to the patient in only 48 (23.6%) of the 203 medication or syringe events. On average, 14.5 syringe movements occurred in each case. We estimate approximately 4.2 syringe movements for each medication administration. When a medication was administered to the patient (either through the IV pump or the patient port), it was picked up from one of 8 locations in the work area. Our study suggests that the syringe storage locations vary and include irregular locations (e.g., patient bed or provider's pockets). Our study contributes to understanding the complexity in the anesthesia work practices.