Hospital surgical teams with more women improve patient recovery, study finds

Hospital surgical teams that include more female doctors improve patient outcomes, lower the risk of serious complications and could in turn reduce healthcare costs, according to the world’s largest study of its kind.

Studies show diversity is important in business, finance, tech, education and the law not only for equity but for output. However, evidence supporting the value of sex diversity in healthcare teams has been limited.

Now researchers who examined more than 700,000 operations spanning a decade report that hospitals with more women in their surgical teams provide better outcomes for patients. The findings were published in the British Journal of Surgery.

“Care in hospitals with greater anaesthesia-surgery team sex diversity was associated with better postoperative outcomes,” the researchers concluded. “The main takeaway for clinical practice and health policy is that increasing operating room teams’ sex diversity is not a question of representation or social justice, but an important part of optimising performance."

Dr Julie Hallet, the lead author of the study at the University of Toronto, said, “These results are the start of an important shift in understanding the way in which diversity contributes to quality in perioperative care.”

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Source: Guardian, 15 May 2024