The Association of Nurse-Physician Teamwork and Mortality in Surgical Patients.
Xiao Linda Kang, Heather M Brom, Karen B Lasater and 1 others
PMID 31215348WHAT IT FOUND
Better nurse-physician teamwork was associated with lower 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue in surgical patients.
This benefit only appeared in hospitals with adequate staffing and higher percentages of BSN-educated nurses, meaning teamwork programs need nursing resources to work.
Key findings
01For each standard deviation unit increase in nurse-physician teamwork, the odds of 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue both decreased by 5%.
02The protective effect of teamwork was virtually nil in hospitals with poor staffing (2 patients per nurse above the mean).
03In hospitals with 20% more BSN-educated nurses above the mean, nurse-physician teamwork decreased the odds of 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue by approximately 9%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study design is cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that better teamwork causes lower mortality; it only shows an association. The data are from 2006-2007, which may not reflect current hospital environments or nursing practices. Unmeasured confounding variables may have influenced the results, despite extensive risk adjustment. The study focuses on surgical patients in acute care hospitals, so findings may not generalize to other settings or patient populations.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the 5% reduction in mortality odds as a guaranteed outcome of implementing teamwork training alone. The study found that this benefit disappears in hospitals with poor staffing or lower percentages of BSN-educated nurses, meaning teamwork initiatives require concurrent investment in nursing resources to be effective.