\t\t\tHuman Factors <\/p>\n
Rather than focusing solely on human mistakes, Trbovich asks broader questions: How was the operating room designed? Was someone interrupted at a critical moment? Was the equipment where it should have been? This approach \u2013 known as human factors \u2013 examines how people interact with their environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trbovich, the Badeau Family Research Chair in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at North York General Hospital, has identified distractions, unclear communications and missing or poorly designed equipment as key safety concerns. Different members of the surgical team need to focus at different points in a procedure, she says. When colleagues understand those moments, they can avoid unnecessary disruptions and protect each other\u2019s concentration.<\/p>\n
Just as important are the often invisible adjustments teams make to prevent problems from escalating. A lead surgeon may switch roles with a surgical trainee. A nurse may anticipate the need for an extra instrument. The team may call in an expert to advise. These actions rarely appear in incident reports, but they are essential to keep patients safe. \u201cSuccess often leaves no trace,\u201d Trbovich says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make those invisible moments visible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Changing outcomes\u00a0 <\/p>\n
As Trbovich\u2019s team studies OR black box data, they are developing ideas for operating room improvements. Some fixes are straightforward. For instance, hospitals often add items to the World Health Organization\u2019s surgical safety checklist. Over time, some checklists become so long and densely printed that they are difficult to read from the operating table. Trbovich worked with hospitals to condense their lists and improve their visibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her team is also studying how to strengthen psychological safety in operating rooms. Rather than focusing only on individual behaviour, they are testing cultural changes such as adding names to surgical caps, offering opportunities for confidential feedback and creating structured pauses during surgery for team input \u2013 small adjustments that make speaking up easier and more routine.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Trbovich is leading a project to develop predictive tools that could flag safety threats as surgeries proceed. The goal is to use AI to analyze black box data and provide timely alerts to clinical teams. The system is being designed with clinicians to ensure it augments \u2013 rather than replaces \u2013 human judgment. It is also being tested to minimize unnecessary warnings and avoid \u201calert fatigue,\u201d says Trbovich.<\/p>\n
Whether the solution involves redesigning a checklist or developing AI-driven insights, the principle is the same: better systems support better care. Trbovich compares it to Formula 1 racing. \u201cF1 drivers aren\u2019t superhuman,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re fast because every part of the system \u2013 the car, the track, the data \u2013 is engineered around performance.\u201d Likewise, in the operating room, success depends on more than individual expertise. It depends on an environment designed to help skilled teams do their best work \u2013 even when the unexpected happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Human Factors Rather than focusing solely on human mistakes, Trbovich asks broader questions: How was the operating room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-631387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}