Rationale: Organizing intensive care unit (ICU) interprofessional teams is a high priority due to workforce needs, but the role of interprofessional familiarity remains unexplored.
Objective: Determine if mechanically ventilated patients cared for by teams with greater familiarity have improved outcomes, such as lower mortality, shorter duration of mechanical ventilation (MV), and greater spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) implementation.
Methods: We used electronic health records data of 5 ICUs in an academic medical center to map interprofessional teams and their ICU networks, measuring team familiarity as network coreness and mean team value. We used patient-level regression models to link team familiarity with patient outcomes, accounting for patient/unit factors. We also performed a split-sample analysis by using 2018 team familiarity data to predict 2019 outcomes.
Measurements: Team familiarity was measured as the average number of patients shared by each clinician with all other clinicians in the ICU (i.e., coreness) and the average number of patients shared by any two members of the team (i.e., mean team value).
Main results: Among 4,485 encounters, unadjusted mortality was 12.9%, average duration of MV was 2.32 days and SBT implementation was 89%; average team coreness was 467.2 (SD = 96.15) and average mean team value was 87.02 (SD=42.42). A standard-deviation increase in team coreness was significantly associated with a 4.5% greater probability of SBT implementation, 23% shorter MV duration, and 3.8% lower probability of dying; mean team value was significantly associated with lower mortality. Split-sample results were attenuated but congruent in direction and interpretation.
Conclusions: Interprofessional familiarity was associated with improved outcomes; assignment models that prioritize familiarity might be a novel solution.
Keywords: evidence-based care; inteprrofessional teams; mechanical ventilation.