Background: The efficient and fluid organization of surgical interventions in an operating room (OR) and operating suite (OS) is important as these are among the most expensive units to run in medical-surgical facilities. The complexity of OS organization requires careful coordination, defined here as the directing of individuals' efforts toward achieving common and explicitly recognized goals. There is currently sparse literature on OS coordination, especially in the French context. This study aimed to respond to this gap by reporting on the coordination mechanisms associated with the perceived performance of OS across 4 facilities in an urban setting in France.
Methods: We used a qualitative comparative case study based on ethnographic methodology to explore 4 facilities (2 teaching, 1 general, and 1 private). Several investigation techniques were used for data collection (semistructured interviews, participant and nonparticipant observations, and informal interviews) in the OR, the OS, the regulation council (dedicated to adapting the necessary resources to specific procedures and patients' health status), and the OS council (dedicated to strategic and operational OS transformations and adaptations, and responsible for finding solutions to organizational problems). Analysis was guided by Okhuysen and Bachky's theoretical framework on coordination and multi-team systems theory. Data were compared across the 4 facilities and triangulated using the different techniques to ensure coherence and accuracy.
Results: Overall, 48 interviews with health care providers and hospital managers and 200 hours of direct observations were performed. The OR exhibited a high degree of coordination, whereas improved perception of performance in the OS depended on managerial competency, trust, and authority. Perceived performance in the regulation council and OS council, on the other hand, depended on the identification of formal objectives by all stakeholders and the development of common understanding (developing agreement, direct information sharing, creating common perspective, substitution, bringing groups together, and storing of knowledge).
Conclusions: Based on existing literature on multi-team systems (as represented in the OS organization), this study identifies success factors influencing OS coordination. These include the OS manager's leadership skills; the identification of formal system objectives; and professional differentiation between stakeholders (absence/decrease of a sense of belonging to a multi-team system). This differentiation was related to the high degree of specialization within OS teams, each bringing different norms, cultures, and contingencies that induce dissonance in organization and task performance. Interventions targeting these success factors might improve coordination, and thus performance, in the OS.
