ArticleApplied clinical informatics2023
Surgery and Anesthesia Preoperative "Virtual Huddle": A Pilot Trial to Enhance Communication across the Drape.
Article in Applied clinical informatics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- When seconds matter - introducing a surgical salvage strategy by emergency robotic surgery: a review.Patient safety in surgery · 2026Review
- [Interdisciplinary collaboration between anesthesia and surgery : Which key issues need to be addressed?]Chirurgie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- The Power of The (First) Name: Do name tags for operating room staff improve effective communication and patient safety? A proof-of-concept study from an academic medical center in Germany.Patient safety in surgery · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesEffective communication between surgeons and anesthesiologists is critical for high-quality, safe, and efficient perioperative patient care. Despite widespread implementation of surgical safety checklists and time-outs, ineffective team communication remains a leading cause of patient safety events in the operating room. To promote effective communication, we conducted a pilot trial of a "virtual huddle" between anesthesiologists and surgeons.
methodsAttending anesthesiologists and surgeons at an academic medical center were recruited by email to participate in this feasibility trial. An electronic health record-based smartphone application was utilized to create secure group chats among trial participants the day before a surgery. Text notifications connected a surgeon/anesthesiologist pair in order to introduce colleagues, facilitate a preoperative virtual huddle, and enable open-ended, text message-based communication. A 5-point Likert scale-based survey with a free-text component was used to evaluate the utility of the virtual huddle and usability of the electronic platform.
resultsA total of 51 unique virtual huddles occurred between 16 surgeons and 12 anesthesiologists over 99 operations. All postintervention survey questions received a positive rating (range: 3.50/5.00-4.53/5.00) and the virtual huddle was considered to be easy to use (4.47/5.00), improve attending-to-attending communication (4.29/5.00), and improve patient care (4.22/5.00). There were no statistically significant differences in the ratings between surgery and anesthesia. In thematic analysis of qualitative survey results, Participants indicated the intervention was particularly useful in interdisciplinary relationship-building and reducing room turnover. The huddle was less useful for simple, routine cases or when participation was one sided.
conclusionA preoperative virtual huddle may be a simple and effective intervention to improve communication and teamwork in the operating room. Further study and consideration of broader implementation is warranted.
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