Acceptability of the decision support for safer surgery tool

Background We examined providers' perceptions of the Decision Support for Safer Surgery (DS3) tool, which provided preoperative patient-level risk estimates of postoperative adverse events. Methods The DS3 tool was evaluated at 2 academic medical centers. During the validation study, surgeons provided usefulness ratings of the DS3 tool for each patient before surgery. At the end of the study, providers' perceptions of the DS3 tool were assessed via questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t tests. Results During the trial, 23 surgeons completed usefulness ratings of the DS3 tool for 1,006 patients. Surgeons rated the tool as "very useful" or "moderately useful" in 251 (25%) of the cases, "neutral" in 469 (46.6%) of the cases, and "moderately unuseful" or "not useful" in 286 (28.4%) cases. At the end of the trial, 32 providers completed the questionnaire; perceptions were relatively neutral, although several aspects were rated quite favorably. Conclusion The DS3 tool may be most useful for achieving particular tasks (eg, training novice surgeons, increasing patient engagement) or encouraging specific processes (eg, team-based care) in surgical care settings.