Military communication tool could reduce deaths from surgery
A communication tool first created for the nuclear submarine industry and later more widely used by the military and aviation sectors has been highlighted by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh as an effective technique to avoid adverse events and improve patient safety – cutting mortality by as much as two thirds.
The college launched a competition inviting trainee surgeons to submit videos showcasing communication techniques across a variety of circumstances encountered in their daily work. Submissions covered themes ranging from the delivery of bad news to patients, to clear handover to colleagues and phone calls to outside consultants when raising an alarm or seeking advice out-of-hours.
The competition was won by a team of female junior doctors based in Sheffield, who submitted a video on utilising the Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation (SBAR) technique to avoid errors and delays when escalating a concern to a consultant outside the hospital, for example when a patient might be deteriorating.
A 2013 study in journal Resuscitation evaluated close to 40,000 patient admissions across 16 hospital wards, and the implementation of SBAR in nurse-doctor communication alone cut unexpected deaths by a staggering 66%. Another, more recent (2014) study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) also showed that the adoption of SBAR within a number of anaesthetic clinics reduced the number of ‘serious incidents due to communication errors’ from 31% to 11% (-65%).
According to consultant plastic surgeon Judy Evans, who is on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and who led the competition initiative; “Effective communication is vital for patient safety. The winning team submitted an excellent video depicting the use of SBAR in an original way – it puts out a powerful message and a reminder that this effective tool can help cut errors and ensure the healthcare team covers all the salient and necessary features when providing patient history.”
