3 Healthy Habits to Lead Inter-Disciplinary Communication

By: Aorn Staff

Published: 10/9/2019

Share:

Publish Date: April 25, 2018


When Laura Bonanno, DNP, CRNA, is in the OR with her nurse anesthesia students at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) School of Nursing in New Orleans, she introduces herself to the surgeon, RN circulator and other members of the team.

Modeling these important introductions is just one of the many inter-disciplinary communication lessons Bonanno teaches her students as part of the team training she promotes along with colleagues including surgeon John Paige, MD, perioperative nurse Deborah Garbee, PhD, APRN, ACNS-BC, and other nurse anesthesia faculty.

Their goal is to help the next generation of perioperative nurse anesthetists, nurses, and physicians establish habits to improve their collective engagement for patient safety.

Walking the Talk

In her various leadership roles as director of the Nurse Anesthesia Program at LSUHSC School of Nursing, vice president of the Council on Accreditation for Nurse Anesthesia Education Programs, and president of the Louisiana State Board of Nursing, Bonanno sees widespread agreement that ineffective communication is one of the leading causes of medical errors and poses a significant risk to patient safety.

“This is something we all talk about a lot, but it’s not adequately addressed enough in the real world,” she says.

Inspired to move from discussion to action, Bonanno and her team applied for and received federal funding to promote teamwork training for inter-professional students. This was the driving force to integrate high-fidelity simulation-based team training into the respective medical and nurse anesthesia curriculum.

Now in its 10th year, this simulation-based training integrated into the School of Medicine and Nurse Anesthesia curricula allows students to experience a team response to an unexpected patient safety event. This is followed by a debriefing session where team-based competencies are reinforced.

The students then participate in a second simulation session and as Bonanno explains, “it’s truly an ‘aha’ moment when the students realize how the use of effective communication and other team-based competencies improved the overall team response.”

Today students who have participated in the team training are now working together as physicians and nurse anesthetists. Bonanno says this team training has created a cascade affect among leaders directing various disciplines at LSUHSC who are reinforcing inter-disciplinary OR communication as a standard of care.

Making New Habits

Bonanno encourages every perioperative nurse leader, whether or not they are working in an academic setting, to instill an inter-disciplinary communication approach to engage all OR team members in patient safety. To get there, she suggests these three key steps:

  1. Partner with a Physician Leader to Establish a Structured Approach

    This approach could be an academic course or a process improvement initiative that includes nurses and physicians working together as equals to instill consistent inter-disciplinary communication techniques that are required for every procedure.


  2. Be Present in the Trenches

    Although perioperative leaders are very busy with work outside of the OR, make time to have a presence in the perioperative setting to observe and discuss communication behaviors. It’s also important to reinforce the expectation that introductions and other inter-disciplinary communications are as important as the Time Out.


  3. Model Inter-Disciplinary Communication

    When leaders representing the various OR disciplines work well together and have open lines of communication, this is very apparent to all staff. By modeling this inter-disciplinary communication outside of the OR, different disciplines working in the OR are more likely to adopt similar practices.

As accreditation organizations are looking for interdisciplinary training and effective communication to be part of education and practice, Bonanno says “forward-thinking leaders need to be working now to find ways to make this a reality in their own practice settings.”

Additional Resources

Find new ways to innovate, optimize and transform your OR at one of AORN’s spring Nurse Executive Leadership Seminars.

Explore AORN’s Guideline for Team Communication and complementary Guideline Essentials to help your frontline incorporate communication into practice.

FREE RESOURCES FOR MEMBERS

AORN Journal CE Articles

Clinical FAQs

Guideline Essentials