“THE SOUTH CAROLINA SAFE SURGERY 2015
INITIATIVE” ADJUNCTS AND
BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTING A STATEWIDE SURGICAL SAFETY CHECKLIST FU Interview with William Berry
A few months back
I spoke with multiple folks responsible for the South Carolina Safety
Initiative (for details see: http://crisislead.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-south-carolina-safe-surgery-2015.html)
With several years
of experience in implementation of the WHO Surgical Safety project, the Harvard
team lead by Atul Gawande, MD, MPH and William Berry, MD,
MPA, MPH (Chief Medical Officer at Ariadne
Labs) was a natural
advisory component for this project.
When I began to
inquire more, Dr. Gawande referred me to Dr. Berry, who was gracious to talk
with me a few weeks ago about this project and his experience in surgical
safety.
How did you get
involved in this project?
Dr. Berry:
I was an actively practicing cardiac surgeon and as I
approached 50, I decided I wanted a change in career. That led me to become a student
at the Harvard Kennedy School and after that, the Harvard School of Public
Health. After graduation I started to work for CRICO – Harvard’s Malpractice
Carrier and through met Dr. Atul
Gawande. Because of that connection,
when Dr. Gawande was asked by the WHO to do a project to improve surgical
safety globally, he asked me if I could help.
That project led to the creation of WHO surgical safety checklist. After the checklist project had been launched,
a private foundation approached Dr. Gawande with funding and the work in South
Carolina with the hospital association and the SC hospitals was begun.
What do you see as
the major difference between the WHO surgical checklist implementation in third
world countries and places like the US and UK?
Dr. Berry:
The biggest difference I think, is the baseline level of quality
improvement work that has already been done in the developed world. In an sub-Saharan
African country, while there may be a University/Academic Medical Center, that
facility will usually not have the same resources devoted to quality
improvement. Outside of the academic centers in those settings, primarily
because of constrained resources, quality improvement experience is even more
limited. Again, because of resource
limitations, they may not even have access to basic surgical supplies. In many
countries, certain surgical safety processes like routine sponge counting are
not performed. There are many other
drastic differences. While the surgeons are often very well trained in
American/European training programs, they suffer a lack of infrastructure and
supplies. In some parts of the world, the availability of well-trained
professions is also limited forcing surgical needs to be met with less trained
providers.
Finally, while hierarchy in developed world operating
rooms can pose challenges to teamwork and patient safety, in developing world countries where the
educational difference between the surgeons and other staff can be much greater,
these issues can present even greater challenges.
The literature is
wrought with reports that surgeons and anesthesiologists remain as major
barriers to implementation in Surgical Safety projects. In the Harvard / Mass
General Studies on implementation of the crisis checklist simulation project the
attending surgeons were noticeably absent (replaced by fill-ins).
How do you get surgeons motivated to participate?
Dr. Berry:
We learned that a major challenge to doing a simulation
trial with clinical team is the difficulty in getting teams to participate
without compensating them for lost clinical time. Attending anesthesiologists
were easier to recruit because one of the principle investigators could
backfill them clinically. The similar approach could be used for nursing staff
– substituting one nurse for another.
It was impossible to use that strategy with surgeons – their clinical
roles are not easily backfilled.
We have since published a paper where we were able to
recruit surgeons (vascular, CVT, etc.) to participate in a team training
program in part by including a 10% reduction in their malpractice premium. Many surgeons want to be involved but we need
to be creative in finding ways to make it easier – more convenient for
them. We need to find a way to use the
time that is already put aside outside of the operating room – like grand
rounds or departmental meetings. This is
time that is already “paid for” and can sometimes be repurposed to great
effect. We have also found that trying “bite sized” training (short lunch time
sessions) seems to be more successful. The feedback has been positive. Ideally, it would be great to get into every
hospital surgery staff meeting but that is often logistically impossible.
For certain kinds of programs, like those that are webinar
based, it can often be easier to reach the nurses and try to use them as a connector
to the surgeons- if you help the nurses figure out how to effectively approach
the surgeons you may have success.
In your experience
how does your group gain the interest in participation by very busy
surgeons/anesthesia providers who have a low expectation of change from these
projects with high expectations of creating more inefficient processes? How do
we find ways to implore these very busy surgeons to participate in these exercises
and in the implementation phases? If you don’t have the surgeon’s buy in AND
support, you will not have success.
Dr. Berry:
I don’t think that we are always making the right
arguments to the surgeons and anesthesiologists. We need to promote better checklists
use as a way for surgeons and anesthesiologists to lead the team and make care
better for their patients. Many surgeons, in particular, believe that they are
already doing everything that they can to provide the very best care to their
patients even when there is convincing evidence that even the best can improve.
To make that point to operating room teams, we designed a safety culture survey
to identify the gaps in the existing OR culture prior to the implementation of
the checklist. This is based on the work of two pioneers in patient safety, Dr.
Marty Makary and Peter Pronovost, who have previously shown a
disconnect between perceptions of team members about the level of safety and
teamwork in operating rooms – with the surgeons being the most “optimistic”. This disconnect is further magnified by the
difficulty that surgeons have understanding that they are not the only
critically important people in an OR.
Every team member is important and surgery cannot take place without
that team. Making matters worse, many surgeons act as if
those around them can read minds – making assumptions about things that may not
be true. I have found sometimes that surgeons can be convinced to support
checklist use – not because it wioll necessarily help them – but because they
are convinced that there are other surgeons who do need it. When I
was early in my clinical experience, I had what I called a “ need-know policy”
– which translated to – “Don’t ask me so many questions about things that you
don’t need to know”. I eventually realized that many times – they did need to
know and that even if they didn’t, they needed to know because they were
interested and so they felt more a part of the patient’s care. I then started a
routine habit of beginning each case making sure everyone knew something about
the patient as a person and why the surgery was so important to them. This eventually became my “preop” briefing
too.
What surprises you
most during these projects? What was most expected?
Dr. Berry:
How hard the projects can be and how much time it can take
to change practice and culture. Before
we started the work in South Carolina, I had extensive experience in quality
improvement and patient safety work through IHI and CRICO – and I knew already
that change was hard. But every time I am involved in work like this – I learn
again that moving practice and the culture along with it – is really hard. I think that I have also been surprised by
how hard it can be to change things even with very simple tools. Simple doesn’t
mean easy.
What has been the
biggest disappointment thus far?
Dr. Berry:
The checklist is a way to help patients get better care
and teams to provide that care. It is
filled things that we should do, with process checks and prompts for
discussions that stand on evidence – sometimes evidence that is decades
old. That gap – between things that we
know we should do – and what we actually do – needs to be closed. My greatest disappointment
is in how hard it is to close that gap and get change implemented. Getting physicians actively involved in
closing these care gaps is also difficult and that is disappointing too. That said, it is getting better. I think that
we are on the right road and that the next generation may have it easier.
Kenneth A. Lipshy, MD, FACS
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