Researchers have found that hospital surgical teams with a higher proportion of women significantly improve patient recovery outcomes.
This presence of female anaesthesiologists and surgeons in operative teams has been linked to a reduction in postoperative complications.
The British Journal of Surgery paper finds that care in hospitals with higher surgery team sex diversity was associated with better patient postoperative outcomes.
Until now, there has been very little evidence to support the value of teams’ sex diversity in healthcare. The differences that male and female doctors bring to the workplace might be a factor, as both sexes possess different skills, knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, and leadership styles.
However, female doctors in operating rooms remain uncommon, with female anaesthesiologists and surgeons increasing by only 5% over 10 years.
Researchers conducted the population-based retrospective cohort study using administrative healthcare data in Ontario, Canada, where 14 million residents receive health services through a government-administered single-payer system.
They investigated adult patients who had major elective inpatient surgeries between 2009 and 2019 to measure postoperative major morbidity.
Of the 709,899 surgeries performed at 88 hospitals during the period, 14.4% had 90-day major morbidity. The median proportion of female anaesthesiologists and surgeons per hospital per year was 28%.
Female surgeons performed 47,874 (6.7%) surgeries, and female anaesthesiologists treated patients in 192,144 (27.0%) of operations.
The study found that hospitals with more than 35% female surgeons and anaesthesiologists had better postoperative outcomes.
Operations in such hospitals were associated with a 3% reduction in patients’ odds of 90-day postoperative significant morbidity.
The researchers noted this 35% threshold they observed echoed findings from research in other industries in various countries, including the US, Italy, Australia and Japan, that also showed better outcomes once teams had 35% female members,
Lead author Julie Hallet said: ‘These results are the start of an important shift in understanding how diversity contributes to quality in perioperative care. Ensuring a critical mass of female anaesthesiologists and surgeons in operative teams isn’t just about equity; it seems necessary to optimise performance.
‘We wanted to challenge the binary discourse of comparing female and male clinicians and rather highlight the importance of diversity as a team asset or bonus in enhancing quality care. Ensuring sex diversity in operative teams will require intentional effort to ensure systematic recruitment and retainment policies for female physicians, structural interventions such as minimum representation on teams, and monitoring and reporting teams’ composition to build accountability in existing systems.’
