How can human technology improve decision-making practices in operating rooms?

This paper reports on qualitative research recently undertaken in metropolitan and rural hospitals in New South Wales, Australia on decision-making practices of doctors and nurses who are managing unplanned surgical cases in operating rooms. Doctors and nurses were interviewed and presented with a decision-making model to guide the scheduling of unplanned surgical cases. Semi-structured interviews centred around current triage determinants and perceived enablers and barriers for better decision-making. We confirmed that "clinical priority'' and "time of arrival" are concrete determinants for queue placement on an emergency surgery list. In addition, we've found that inter- and intra-professional dynamics for effective communication between all decision-makers needs to be better understood and conclude that the proposed decision-making tool may be a catalyst for dialogue that helps improve decision-making practices and overall operating room utilisation.