Health: Patient Quality Care Influenced By Medical Staff

New findings published in the journal Pediatrics show how medical staff treat patients can ultimately influence the performance and quality of care they receive.

"Relatively benign forms of incivility among medical staff members -- simple rudeness -- have robust implications on medical team collaboration processes and thus on their performance as a team," said Peter Bamberger, a professor in the School of Management at Tel Aviv University, in a press release. "This is important because rudeness is rampant in many medical contexts. Patients and their families may be rude to caregivers, and caregivers may be rude to one another."

In this recent study, researchers worked with neonatal intensive care units from 24 israeli hospitals in simulation exercises to test the effects of rudeness on performance.

The teams were asked to work on a simulated preterm infant with necrotizing enterocolitis--a condition seen in premature infants in which part of the bowel undergoes tissue death. Meanwhile, a foreign expert observed their work. Groups in the study were randomly assigned to either hear negative or neutral comments from the experts while they worked on the patient.

Findings revealed a 12 percent decline in diagnostic and procedural performance scores among the groups who received feedback when compared to those hearing neutral comments. Furthermore, personnel on the teams also worked together to share information and assist others that mediated some of the adverse effects of the negative comments.

"We hope our findings will shift the focus of research on medical error toward interpersonal interactions and cognition," Bamberger concluded. "From a practical perspective, we hope it will call attention to the need to shift behavioral norms in medical contexts."

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