Impact of team performance on the surgical safety checklist on patient outcomes: an operating room black box analysis

Surgical safety checklists reduce adverse events, but monitoring adherence to checklists is confounded by observation bias. The ORBB platform can monitor checklist compliance and correlate compliance with outcomes. This study aims to evaluate the association between checklist compliance and patient outcomes using the ORBB platform.

This is a retrospective analysis of data from the electronic medical record of cases performed in ORBB-equipped operating rooms at a single quaternary referral center. All patients who did not opt out and underwent surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in ORBB-equipped rooms from August 2020 to September 2022 were included. The ORBB platform was set-up in five operating rooms and surgical safety checklist compliance was monitored by way of AI-based video review.

Overall, 4581 patients were included in this analysis.^. Performance on the checklist was associated with lower mortality (OR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.94–0.98; P < 0.05), and decreased length of stay (estimate [E]: −0.02 days; 95% CI, −0.03 to −0.005; P < 0.05). Performance during “timeouts” was associated with mortality (OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.94–0.99; P < 0.05). “Debriefings” were independently associated with mortality (OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.96–0.99; P < 0.05), length of stay (Estimate, −0.0009 days; 95% CI, −0.02 to −0.001; P < 0.05), and ICU admission (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.98–0.99; P < 0.05).

Procedures performed by surgical teams who performed better on the surgical safety checklist tended to have better outcomes. This innovative technology could substantially enhance our ability to understand and mitigate threats to patients in real-time.