Long-term effects of perioperative briefing and debriefing on team climate: A mixed-method evaluation study.

INTRODUCTION: To evaluate the long-term (5 years) effects of perioperative briefing and debriefing on team climate. We explored the barriers and facilitators of the performance of perioperative briefing and debriefing to explain its effects on team climate and to make recommendations for further improvement of surgical safety tools. METHODS: A mixed-method evaluation study was carried out amongst surgical staff at a tertiary care university hospital with 593-bed capacity in the Netherlands. Thirteen surgical teams were included. Team climate inventory and a standardised evaluation questionnaire were used to measure team climate (primary outcome) and experiences with perioperative briefing and debriefing (secondary outcome), respectively. Thirteen surgical team members participated in a semi-structured interview to explore barriers and facilitators of the performance of perioperative briefing and debriefing. RESULTS: The dimension "participative safety" increased significantly 5 years after the implementation of perioperative briefing and debriefing (P = .02 (95% confidence interval 1.18-9.25)). Perioperative briefing and debriefing were considered a useful method for improving and sustaining participative safety and cooperation within surgical teams. The positive aspects of briefing were that shared agreements made at the start of the day and that briefing enabled participants to work as a team. Participants were less satisfied regarding debriefing, mostly because of the lack of a sense of urgency and a lack of a safe culture for feedback. Briefing and debriefing had less influence on efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: Although perioperative briefing and debriefing improve participative safety, the intervention will become more effective for maintaining team climate when teams are complete, irrelevant questions are substituted by customised ones and when there is a safer culture for feedback.

Impact of Time to Diagnosis and Treatment in Head and Neck Cancer: A Systematic Review.

OBJECTIVE: An increased interval between symptomatic disease and treatment may negatively influence oncologic and/or functional outcomes in head and neck cancer (HNC). This systematic review aims to provide insight into the effects of time to treatment intervals on oncologic and functional outcomes in oral cavity, pharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane library were searched. REVIEW METHODS: All studies on delay or time to diagnosis or treatment in oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer were included. Quality assessment was performed with an adjusted version of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Outcomes of interest were tumor volume, stage, recurrence, survival, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), toxicity, and functionality after treatment. RESULTS: A total of 51 studies were included. Current literature on the influence of delay in HNC is inconsistent but indicates higher stage and worse survival with longer delay. The effects on PROMs, toxicity, and functional outcome after treatment have not been investigated. The inconsistencies in outcomes were most likely caused by factors such as heterogeneity in study design, differences in the definitions of delay, bias of results, and incomplete adjustment for confounding factors in the included studies. CONCLUSION: Irrespective of the level of evidence, the unfavorable effects of delay on oncologic, functional, and psychosocial outcomes are undisputed. Timely treatment while maintaining high-quality diagnostic procedures and decision making reflects good clinical practice in our opinion. This review will pose practical and logistic challenges that will have to be overcome.