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October 17-21, 2009 New Orleans, LA Home Abstract Archive Search Abstracts 2009 Session Grid 2009 Meeting Website Policy Statements ASA Website Feedback 
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A-1389
2004 |
| Video for Operating Room Coordination: Will the Staff Accept It? |
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Richard Dutton, M.D., F. Jacob Seagull, Ph.D., Peter Hu, M.S., Thomas Scalea, M.D., Yan Xiao, Ph.D. Anesthesiology, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. |
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Status monitoring video may be useful for the management of operating rooms (OR) yet there is little data on the acceptance by OR staff, and concern that continuous video monitoring will threaten individual privacy. We installed a video system in our OR suite and tested the hypothesis that, with experience, staff would accept the video more if they were well informedregarding its purpose, and if the quality of video was manipulated to achieve a trade-off between intrusion of privacy and information value. Method Cameras were installed in all six ORs, with images displayed alongside the OR Control greaseboard in a restricted, staff-only area. Quality of images was controlled by a blurring and pixel resampling algorithm. Staff were informed and consulted over six months before installation. Through an interactive process, the image quality was set at 12.5% of original camera resolution. Two months after installation, an anonymous survey of staff acceptance was conducted on the usefulness of real-time OR video and about individual concerns in 3-point scales: Usefulness (useless, neutral, useful), Concerns (no concerns, few concerns, substantive concerns), Changes in Usefulness (less useful, no change, more useful), and Changes in Concerns (diminishing concerns, no change, increased concerns). X2 test was used to assess differences in distribution of responses, with p<0.05 as significance level. Results Anesthesiologists (n=8), surgeons (n=16), OR nurses (n=20), certified registered nurse anesthetists (n=7), and other personnel (n=12) responded, representing about half of all personnel in the OR suite. An overwhelming percentage of respondents (80%) thought that the video was useful [Figure], and 50% that video caused no concerns [Figure]. Three respondents (5%) expressed substantive concerns. None of the respondents expressed increased concerns, while 35.6% thought that the experience with the use of video diminished their concerns (p<0.001). The percentages of non-physician respondents (n=39, 74%) who decreased their concerns were significantly more (p<0.001) than that of physician respondents (n=24, 23%). About half (48.3%) found video more useful as they became more accustomed to it. Only 2 respondents (3.1%) found the video less useful with experience. Discussion Real-time video is a technically feasible tool to facilitate OR management, yet staff acceptance, either because of patient privacy concerns or staff autonomy concerns, remains an obstacle [1]. Staff involvement in determining video quality and display location can help to ameliorate these concerns and increase the acceptance of this tool. Experience with real-time video helped OR personnel discover for themselves the usefulness and reduce their concerns, suggesting the importance of carefully staging real-time video, especially among non-physicians. [1] Zweig, D & Webster J. J Org Behav, 23, 605–633, 2002 Anesthesiology 2004; 101: A1389 |
Figure 1
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