Understanding Barriers and Facilitators to Behavior Change After Implementation of an Interdisciplinary Surgical Non-Technical Skills Training Program in Rwanda.

Objective: Nontechnical skills, such as situation awareness, decision making, leadership, communication, and teamwork play a crucial role on the quality of care and patient safety in the operating room (OR). In our previous work, we developed an interdisciplinary training program, based on the NOTSS (Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons) taxonomy. The aim of this study was to understand the challenges faced by Rwandan surgical providers, who had undergone NOTSS training, to apply these nontechnical skills during subsequent operative surgery.

Setting Design: A sequential exploratory mixed method study design was used to assess how participants who took the NOTSS in Rwanda applied nontechnical skills in surgical care delivery. The qualitative phase of this study deployed a constructivist grounded theory approach. Findings from the qualitative phase were used to build a quantitative survey tool that explored themes that emerged from the first phase.

Participants: Participants were nurses and resident from the departments of Surgery, Anesthesia, Obstetric, and Gynecology, from the University of Rwanda who attended the NOTSS course in March 2018.

Results: A total of 25 participants and 49 participants were respectively enrolled in the qualitative phase and quantitative phase. Participants noted that nontechnical skills implementation in clinical practice was facilitated by working with other personnel also trained in NOTSS, anticipation, and preparation ahead of the time; while lack of interdisciplinary communication, hierarchy, work overload, and an inconsistently changing environment compromised nontechnical skills implementation. Nontechnical skills were useful both inside and outside the operating. Participants reported that nontechnical skills implementation resulted in improved team dynamics, safer patient care, and empowerment.

Conclusion: Surgical care providers who took the NOTSS course subsequently implemented nontechnical skills both inside and outside of the OR. Human and system-based factors affected the implementation of nontechnical skills in the clinical setting.