Anne van Dalen

Assessing the team’s perception on human factors in the operating room environment I 167 5 Participants in this survey study were under video and audio monitoring, which may have biased their answers and influenced their work condition. The non-obstructive set-up for observation with ORBB may however not attribute much to this possible Hawthorne effect, as one usually forgets a camera not disturbing one’s acts, when focusing at their tasks. The team hence reverted back to normal behavior very quickly. A deeper understanding of the etiology and effect of environment and personal factors on performance may lead to more targeted and sustainable quality improvement initiatives. A supportive team-based approach is recommended, to limit the amount of unnecessary safety threats during a surgical procedure. 2 Further work is needed to elucidate the impact of human factors on team performance and surgical safety. Further studies should focus on using objective date, such as derived by ORBB, to evaluate human factor behavior in the OR, and to define what type of human factors are most relevant and valuable to surgical safety, and to incorporate in team-based training.