A Commentary on "Non-technical skills in surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study" (Int J Surg 2022;98:106210).

Dear Sir,

We read with great interest the article by Etheridge et al. [1] on “Non-technical skills in surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study”. In this study, the authors studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on non-technical skills of operating room teams. They showed a small but statistically significant improvement in increase in cooperation and teamwork skills during COVID-19. We would like to add our comments on this article based on our experience [1].

For COVID-19 cases by May 2022 in Colombia, there were 4214 reported active cases, 5 million recovered patients and 139,833 deaths. These figures, even when they were decreasing, are alarming [2]. We are now no longer in a health emergency, but there are still consequences of this crisis, although not all of them are bad.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in recent years has increased its efforts to emphasize on the importance of patient safety as adverse events are one of the top 10 causes of death and disability in the world. Each year about 134 million adverse events occur due to unsafe care in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries, resulting in 2.6 million deaths [3]. One of the causes that puts patient safety at risk is the lack of communication and cooperation of healthcare personnel.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and more specifically in the hospital wards and intensive care units, in response to the WHO on personal protection elements and the risk of not using these elements properly, the medical group was tasked with fortifying teamwork to protect their own health and lives [4].

To achieve better teamwork and cooperation, most institutions started training on all healthcare personnel, not only on implementing biosecurity protocols, but also in using psychological support campaigns to reduce risk factors of depression and burnout. These drastic and hasty measures resulted in an environment of safety and trust among the workers, with increase in patient safety as a secondary outcome [5].

In addition, surgical protocols became stricter. The operating room team members maintain a more direct and friendly communication with their co-workers, leaders and roles were clearly established to allow better and quicker decision-makings during critical moments, which further improve patient safety.

To conclude, we congratulate the authors for such an important article. It is our belief that increase in communication skills of healthcare personnel can directly influence patient safety. In addition, we suggest to conduct multicenter studies to evaluate the impact of improved communicative and cooperative skills on hospital adverse events.

Provenance and peer review

Commentary, internally reviewed.

Conflicts of interest

None.

Sources of funding

None.

Ethical approval

It is not necessary.

Research registration Unique Identifying number (UIN)

1. Name of the registry: Not applicable.

2. Unique Identifying number or registration ID: Not applicable.

3. Hyperlink to your specific registration (must be publicly accessible and will be checked): Not applicable.

Author contribution

All authors equally contributed to the analysis and writing of the manuscript.

Guarantor

Gonzalo Andrés Domínguez Alvarado, Médico, Especialista Epidemiologia, Docente, Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga, Grupo de innovación e investigación Quirúrgica (GIIQ), Capitulo Futuros cirujanos (ASCOL), Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia. gdominguez@unab.edu.co.