Does familiarity between surgeons and anesthesia professionals matter?

[00:00:00]Ever notice how some days feel easier when you're working with a surgeon you've partnered with a hundred times before?

[00:00:05]It turns out that familiarity may matter more than we thought. A retrospective study of more than 16,000 adult cardiac surgery cases examined whether surgeon-anesthesiologist team familiarity was associated with patient outcomes.

[00:00:19]Researchers measured familiarity by the number of cases a specific surgeon-anesthesiologist pair did together during the previous year. What they found was striking. As team familiarity increased, operative mortality decreased. After adjusting for patient and procedural risk factors, patients cared for by the least familiar surgeon-anesthesiologist teams had an odds ratio of 1.9 for perioperative mortality compared to those treated by the most familiar teams.

[00:00:47]Less familiar teams were also associated with longer operations, longer ICU and hospital stays, higher transfusion rates, and increased pulmonary and neurologic complications.

[00:00:58]The authors suggest that familiarity may improve communication, anticipation of critical events, and shared decision-making under pressure, especially during complex cardiac surgery. Workplace preferences may matter more than we thought. Consistent collaboration may be an important systems-level strategy to improve surgical outcomes and reduce preventable harm.