Team Familiarity and Perioperative Outcomes in Non-Cardiac Surgery

The Impact of Team Familiarity on Surgical Outcomes and Patient Safety in Non-Cardiac Surgery

The goal of this retrospective observational study is to quantify the impact of team collaboration on work efficiency in operating room and patient safety outcomes in non-cardiac surgical teams. The main purpose is to answer:

How does team collaboration affect work efficiency in operating room and patient safety outcomes during/after surgery? The data will be obtained from the Hospital Electronic Medical Record Information System, participants already finished all the planned surgeries.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Operating Room Efficiency
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Surgical team familiarity; Other: Composition and Dynamics of the Surgical Team

Detailed Description

This study aims to reveal the crucial role of teamwork in surgical operations. Firstly, by calculating the degree of collaboration within the surgical team, we quantify the interactions, communication, and trust among team members, and subsequently analyze the impact of this collaboration on surgical team work efficiency indicators including pre-anesthesia preparation time, anesthesia induction time, and operation time, to identify optimal practices. Secondly, it analyzes how the degree of cooperation among surgical teams affects patient safety indicators such as intraoperative blood loss, the incidence of unplanned secondary surgeries, and the in-hospital mortality rate, thereby revealing the direct or indirect contribution of teamwork to patient safety. The impact of surgical team size, gender composition, and shift patterns on work efficiency and patient safety indicators was also analyzed.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 100000

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: N/A

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

The study population includes elective surgical patients who underwent procedures at Zhongda Hospital Southeast University between January 1, 2016, and March 31, 2025, and their respective surgical team members.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All elective surgeries for adults (age ≥18 years)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Surgeries in which patient demographics (age, gender), ASA grade, procedure details, and positional data were unattainable
• Cardiac surgical procedures (with a fixed surgical team)
• Operations under non-intubated general anesthesia or intravenous anesthesia (primarily diagnostic procedures not requiring close multidisciplinary collaboration)
• Surgical cases with missing data on pre-anesthesia preparation time, anesthesia induction time, and surgical procedure duration
• Surgical cases with missing data on team members' years of experience and gender information.
• Surgical cases with missing data on intra- and post-operative major complications and other safety-related outcome measures

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Surgical Team Efficiency	The primary outcome measure of this study is surgical team efficiency, which is represented by three time intervals: pre-anesthesia preparation time (from patient entry into the operating room to anesthesia initiation), anesthesia induction time (from anesthesia initiation to surgery start), and surgical duration (from surgery start to surgery end). These intervals are calculated in minutes using the anesthesia information management system (AIMS), with timestamps recorded in the anesthesia record form within AIMS for the following key events: patient arrival in the operating room, anesthesia initiation, surgery start, surgery conclusion, anesthesia end and patient exit from the operating room.	Perioperative

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Blood loss	The total volume of blood loss during the procedure，measured in milliliters (mL) .	Perioperative
Duration of PACU (Post-Anesthesia Care Unit) stay	From admission to discharge from the PACU recorded in minutes/hours	Perioperative
Unplanned ICU admission within 24 hours post-surgery		Perioperative
Number of postoperative ICU admissions		Perioperative
ICU stay duration recorded in days		Perioperative
Unplanned secondary surgery		Perioperative
Postoperative infection		Perioperative
In-hospital mortality		Perioperative
Total hospital stay duration recorded in days		Perioperative
Total hospitalization expenses recorded in RMB/CNY		Perioperative
Improvement status of the primary diagnosis on the day of discharge		Perioperative
Rescue events during hospitalization		Perioperative

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Zhongda Hospital

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): July 15, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): May 30, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): May 30, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 6, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 3, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): July 15, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 15, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 3, 2025
• Last Verified: June 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 2025ZDSYLL172-P01

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No