Using an Educational Intervention to Map our Surgical Teams' Function, Emotional Intelligence, Communication and Conflict Styles

Abstract

Objective: The leadership team invited surgical team members to participate in educational sessions that created self and other awareness as well as gathered baseline information about these topics: communication, conflict management, emotional intelligence, and teamwork.

Design: Each educational session included an inventory that was completed to help participants understand their own characteristics and the characteristics of their team members. The results from these inventories were aggregated, relationships were identified, and the intervention was evaluated.

Setting: A level 1 trauma center, Baylor Scott and White Health, in central Texas; a 636-bed tertiary care main hospital and an affiliated children's hospital.

Participants: An open invitation for all surgical team members yielded 551 interprofessional OR team members including anesthesia, attending physicians, nursing, physician assistants, residents, and administration.

Results: Surgeons' communication styles were individual focused, while other team members were group focused. The most common conflict management mode for surgical team members on average was avoiding, and the least common was collaborating. Surgeons primarily used competing mode for conflict management, with avoiding coming in a close second. Finally, the 5 dysfunctions of a team inventory revealed low accountability scores, meaning the participants struggled with holding team members accountable.

Conclusions: Helping team members understand their own and others' strengths and blind spots will help create opportunity for more purposeful and clear communication. Additionally, this knowledge should improve efficiency and safety in the high-stakes environment of the operating room.

Keywords: Communication; OR; awareness; conflict management; education; teamwork.