Surgical patients are at risk of avoidable damage. A 'time out procedure' plus debriefing (TOPplus) to check relevant operative items systematically with all team members was designed for five Dutch hospitals in order to reduce avoidable damage during and after a surgical procedure. The overall aim of this study was to evaluate if participatory design (PD) was an appropriate method for designing TOPplus. The study consisted of two parts: 1 designing TOPplus by means of PD 2 testing the design's content and usability. Design of TOPplus with a multidisciplinary design-expert-team and adapting it to its local context with the hospital-expert-teams proved to be valuable, fast and easy. In most hospitals, PD reduced the resistance to change and PD was effective in engaging the hospital-expert-team. In order to design product and processes for healthcare that meet the users' specific needs it is recommended to include more users from the different system levels and allow more time and more moments for contextualisation. Copyright

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doi.org/10.1504/JDR.2011.041391, hdl.handle.net/1765/65222
Journal of Design Research
Department of Surgery

Wauben, L. S. G. L., Dekker-van Doorn, C., Klein, J., Lange, J., & Goossens, R. (2011). Participatory design: Implementation of time out and debriefing in the operating theatre. Journal of Design Research, 9(3), 220–240. doi:10.1504/JDR.2011.041391