Implementation of a Checklist for Surgical Inpatient Rounds: An Observational Cohort Study.

Background: The surgical ward round is the linchpin of inpatient care. Despite this, it is often pressured by external forces such as theatre times, on-call demands, or outpatient clinics. Checklists have been successful in saving lives, particularly in the operating room.

Non-technical error leading to patient fatalities in the Australian surgical population.

Introduction: Many surgical adverse events are due to errors in non-technical skills (NTS); consequently, improving NTS is a priority. However, evidence to guide NTS improvement activities is lacking. This study aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of non-technical errors linked to fatalities in a large, representative surgical-patient population to guide future NTS improvement.

Lost in transcription - how accurately are we documenting the surgical ward round?

Background: Ward rounds are crucial to providing high-quality patient care in hospitals. Ward round quality is strongly linked to patient outcomes, yet ward round best practice is severely underrepresented in the literature. Accurate and thorough ward round documentation is essential to improving communication and patient outcomes.

Optimizing ward rounds: systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions to enhance patient safety.

Background: Poor quality ward rounds contribute to a large proportion of patient complications, delayed discharge, and increased hospital cost. This systematic review investigated all interventions aiming to improve patient and process-based outcomes in ward rounds.

Methods: This systematic review was prospectively registered in PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews (CRD42023394325).

Do Surgical Oncology Multidisciplinary Team Meetings Make a Difference?

Background: Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are important but resource-expensive components of surgical and oncologic care. This cohort study investigated the effectiveness of surgical MDT meetings by assessing the predictability of MDT meeting recommendations, the degree that patient management plans are changed by discussion, and the incidence of recommendation implementation.

Methods: Multidisciplinary team meetings at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South Australia were audited for upper gastrointestinal (UGI) and colorectal (CR) surgical units from August 2021 to June 2022.

Development and validation of a novel tool for identification and categorization of non-technical errors associated with surgical mortality.

Background: Up to half of all surgical adverse events are due to non-technical errors, making non-technical skill assessment and improvement a priority. No specific tools are available to retrospectively identify non-technical errors that have occurred in surgical patient care. This original study aimed to develop and provide evidence of validity and inter-rater reliability for the System for Identification and Categorization of Non-technical Error in Surgical Settings (SICNESS).

Improving communication and patient information recall via a question prompt list: randomized clinical trial.

Background: Patient-surgeon communication is an important component of the success of a consultation and is known to impact patient outcomes. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a document called a question prompt list, containing suggested questions that a patient may like to ask their doctor, improved communication.

Methods: A prospective RCT was conducted from October 2021 to October 2022 at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide, Australia.

Patient prompts in surgical consultations: A systematic review.

Background: Quality communication has been found to improve patient outcomes. Despite good communication, information may still be forgotten or misunderstood by patients. A question prompt list is a document to help patients ask questions.

Can Checklists Solve Our Ward Round Woes? A Systematic Review.

Background: Accurate and thorough surgical ward round documentation is crucial for maintaining quality clinical care. Accordingly, checklists have been proposed to improve ward round documentation. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the literature investigating the use of checklists to improve surgical ward round documentation.